


Doki-Doki Goddess Club!

by Explosition



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel), Hyperdimension Neptunia
Genre: F/F, Go-karts, Psychological Horror, Pudding, Sunshine and Rainbow Roads, happy thoughts, totally innocent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-09-27 18:38:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20412469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Explosition/pseuds/Explosition
Summary: It appeared in Gamindustri one day: a new game. An exciting game. A Doki-Doki game.Let’s play it, everyone. What could go wrong?





	1. Act 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fiction takes place in an AU loosely based around Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;birth 2. Any and all discrepancies between this fanwork and its source material are hereby attributed to the setting being in an alternate dimension. Furthermore, any and all contradictions within the science of this fiction's universe are hereby handwaved with nanomachines, midichlorians, and/or wizards. Please direct all complaints about this policy to Neptune's Chirper account. Kthnx.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neptune finds a game  
but grows bored and leaves, meanwhile  
it's snowing on Mt. Fuji

* * *

**This fanfic is not suitable for children**

**or those who are easily offended.**

* * *

It was midday in the nation of Planeptune.

The sun shocked everyone by doing the same thing it always did. It rose into the air with the ponderous trundle of most celestial objects, seemingly aloof to the people below that slowly baked under its rays. Its devious nature was revealed when it snuck out a single line of photons perfectly aligned to beam down into the capital city below, bounce off countless reflective surfaces, pierce through a small gap in a set of ajar window blinds, and nail our protagonist in the eyes.

“AGH!” the protagonist wailed, suddenly blinded.

“WOMP WOMP,” her television concurred, cutting to a GAME OVER screen as sad trombone music played.

Though she was blind, our protagonist was not deaf. She grimaced at the familiar BGM and grumbled something bitter about celestial interference, trying to shield her face from the light with one hand. Stupid windows. Stupid daytime.

Attempting to stand up went poorly – several hours of sitting down playing video games did no favors for her blood circulation. Our brave protagonist flailed about, attempting to use the leverage of her pinwheeling arms to shove herself off her perch on a dark red sofa. Her game controller left her grip at some point, and punished her lack of attention by flying into the air and landing on her head.

“ACK!” the protagonist yelped, suddenly pained.

“CLACK,” the controller agreed, as it clattered to the floor.

After several more embarrassing moments that she was glad were private, the heroic protagonist managed to gather her numb legs underneath herself and awkwardly stumble in the direction she thought the window was, only to trip and fall into her closet instead. Dozens of identical white hoodies buried her while the television continued its mournful dirge.

She popped her head out of the pile of fabric, spitting a sleeve out of her mouth and glowering at nothing in particular.

“Ugh,” the protagonist groaned, suddenly disheartened.

“RING,” her pocket rebutted, blasting muffled SFX at high volume.

With a squint and a couple blinks, our protagonist did her level best to remove the spots from her vision as she rummaged through the cloth surrounding herself. Finally exhuming the device in her pocket, she stared at its screen.

_1 new massage_, said screen read. She blinked one more time and rubbed her eyes for good measure. Upon second glance the text corrected itself: _1 new message._

“_Hey there Neptune,”_ it read. “_Found this in the Internep the other day and thought it was really clever. Let me know what you think of it!”_

Our newly-identified protagonist narrowed her amethyst eyes at her N-Gear device, clicking the buttons on either side of the portable-gaming-system-and-phone’s screen to pull up more information. The message had a file attachment, but the sender didn’t have a name, just a phone number. Who had sent this?

Wait, that number looked sorta familiar. Neptune opened her contacts and scrolled through them for a bit while attempting to untangle herself from her wardrobe with the other hand. It was slow going, and she had managed to stand up by the time she identified the number. It was Noire’s.

That explained everything. Noire was the leader of Lastation, a country that still hadn’t properly connected their communications network to the rest of the world yet despite everyone offering to help with it. Apparently Noire had taken the task as a challenge to her pride and had insisted on doing the integration herself, which meant it was taking forever. Only basic features had been implemented for Lastation users so far, and they did not include proper Caller ID. Heck, citizens over there couldn’t even change their phone numbers yet.

Neptune returned to the message as she stepped out of her closet and back into her bedroom. She ignored her messy surroundings as she stared at her N-Gear. The file attachment didn’t even have a proper name, just some letters followed by “.exe”. By any normal measure it seemed shady at best. But this was Noire – they’d been friends for so long that Neptune couldn’t recall a time they weren’t. This couldn’t be anything bad, right? _Right?_

It was a testament to Neptune’s faith in her friends and her general reckless attitude that she opened the file without a second thought.

A loading bar preceded a black screen and silence. Though it was not her forte, Neptune made an attempt to be patient and wait. There was a slight flicker as what looked like fragments of text jumbled around the screen. Suddenly they were replaced by a burst of colors in sync with a burst of cheerful music. Piano and drums cresendoed as several female voices cheered: "_Do-ki do-ki!"_

“What the heck?” Neptune mumbled, staring in absolute bewilderment at the title screen. Four anime girls in school uniforms were bouncing around it while pastel patterns floated by in the background.

Was this…? Naw, it couldn’t be.

For the first time in her many years as an aimless layabout, Neptune doubted her ability to identify a game’s genre at a glance. A slow, incredulous smile grew on her face as she navigated to the Options menu. Familiar settings greeted her there: “Text Speed”, “Skip All Except New”, “Voice Volume”…

That cinched it. No question now: this was, without a doubt, a _galge_. Also known as, a Dating Simulator.

Neptune had to take a moment to pause and re-process that thought. Noire, the queen of _tsundere_s herself, champion narcissist and lifelong snob…had sent her a _dating simulator_.

It would’ve been insulting if it wasn’t so nonsensical. Knowing Noire, she was implying something about Neptune’s lovelife along the lines of, “_you need some practice_”. Except she had also mentioned that she thought it was clever, which implied that she had played it herself. This is where Neptune’s train of thought reached orbital velocity and ramped off its tracks up into space, because the mental image of Noire enjoying a _galge_ was so oxymoronic that her brain rejected it outright, like a computer refusing to divide by zero.

Just to be sure, Neptune sat there a few moments and waited for the game to switch genres to something more logical and Noire-like, such as a fighting game or FPS - something that encouraged aggressive competition among players. The game did no such thing. It continued to exist and baffle her.

She returned to the title screen. _Doki Doki Literature Club_, it declared in cheerful lettering.

A galge about literature? Interesting. Such a game would surely have good writing, which was a very important ingredient for making a good dating sim. Perhaps this game was so astoundingly, mind-blowingly amazing that even Noire, who would never touch a galge in her _life_, was impressed by it?

Now her curiosity was burning like a library on fire. Neptune selected the Start New Game option.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

Two hours later, Neptune had come to the only logical conclusion: Noire had lost her mind.

There was nothing about this game that particularly stood out to a veteran game-player like Neptune. If anything, it was disturbingly average for its genre. From what she had gathered on the story so far, it involved a young, presumably male protagonist briefly bemoaning his unremarkable high-school-student life before being accosted by a childhood friend and press-ganged into an after-school literature club full of cute girls.

Midway through the first chapter the game had devolved into a tangent about cookies. Neptune decided that enough was enough and she had gotten a sufficiently large sample of the game’s content. She shut it down, shaking her head.

Unbelievable. She wondered if she should notify Noire’s family about her insanity. Uni had a right to know that her big sister needed to be committed to an asylum for the good of Lastation.

The N-Gear, still in Neptune’s hands, suddenly buzzed and jingled with a new message. She quickly opened it and scanned it.

“_Neptune, where are you? Your first draft is due!_” It was punctuated by a frowning emoji. Neptune looked at the sender’s name and blanched a little. Histoire. Not good. A mad Histoire equaled an unhappy Neptune, via the medium of lecture.

Suddenly deciding it was a _lovely_ day for a walk, Neptune rushed to her window and leaped out of it. She remembered it was closed about point-five seconds later, as glass shards and blinds tangled around her like barbed wire. They couldn’t stop gravity, though, which ripped her away in a grisly spray of blood and sent her spinning towards the ground fifty stories below.

This seems like a good time to mention that Neptune lived in a tower, way up in the penthouse.

A normal person would have been dead at this point, but Neptune was anything but normal – hence her apparently suicidal maneuver. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain and the fierce winds whipping past her face, shouting a word that was torn away from her as it left her mouth.

“ACCESS!”

Streams of binary data materialized in rings around her body, followed by a sphere of light that burst into being around herself, concealing her form. It vanished two seconds later, having fully transformed Neptune’s perky teenage body into that of a mature, voluptuous woman.

She opened her new eyes and narrowed them. Electric “on” symbols glowed within her pupils.

With a faint mechanical noise, pieces of floating metal teleported into place around her falling body; wings, jets, a halo, gauntlets, and greaves. Despite not touching her body, they nonetheless floated along with her as if magnetically attached, maintaining a clearance of about six inches above her skin and the tight-fitting black bodysuit that showed off her new curves. Angling herself so her feet were pointed at the ground, Neptune activated the jets within her mechanical wings. They roared to life, slowing her descent. By the time she reached the ground, it was at a gentle five miles an hour.

The sphere of light appeared again when she was two feet above the pavement, and deposited a freshly-healed teenage Neptune onto the ground with all the ceremony of a dry fart.

She walked down the street, whistling a merry melody and ignoring the shocked looks from passerby. _Move along folks,_ she thought to herself, _nothing unusual here, just the Goddess of Planeptune going out for a stroll. Go back to your business, be on your way, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for._

These thoughts were in jest, of course. Neptune never really saw the point in stealth. Her face was the most recognized one in her nation, being the de facto leader of Planeptune both politically and spiritually, and she was easily identified regardless of disguise due to her inability to sit still and act normal for more than two seconds. Therefore, rather than hide herself, she proudly declared her presence, sauntering down the street with her head held high. Someone would tattle on her to Histoire like always, she was sure, but her advisor and guardian wouldn’t be able to act fast enough to stop her.

The omnipresent click of camera shutters slowly grew into a roar around her. The press had arrived, going into their usual frenzy. She paused for a moment to pose, and the bodies closed in around her, cutting off escape, to which Neptune simply shrugged and said, “ACCESS!”

The rapid fire clicking reached a fever pitch as Adult Neptune emerged from her sphere of light, and now voices were added to the mix, shrieks of adoration mixing with frantic questions.

“Purple Heart, over here!”

“Lady Purple Heart, a moment of your time?”

“Oh my Goddess it’s really her!”

Purple Heart smiled and waved to the rapidly swelling crowd before activating her jets, flying into the air and over their heads. She streaked through the air in a violet comet, headed for the city limits.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

“I’m gonna _nep_ you up!”

WAPOW, BLAM, BONK, POOF. Achievement unlocked.

Teenage Neptune stood victorious amongst the flora and fauna of Virtua Forest. It was a picturesque place that one might find in generic landscape paintings everywhere. It was also one of her favorite stomping grounds. Right now it was living up to its reputation as she stomped some weak Dogoo slime monsters.

Literally. She whooped as her foot found and smashed another one. It burst like an overripe blue tomato under her weight, spraying everywhere. From head to toe she was now covered in blue slime, like an alien or a performance artist. Rather than minding the mess, Neptune instead leaned into the role and waved her clawed hands in the air spookily.

“RAWR!” she rawr’d. “It is I, Nepzilla, come to destroy your fair city of Dogookyo! Love me and despair!”

Truly terrifying. Dogoos everywhere fled with the fear of the Goddess in their little dogoo hearts.

Finally pausing her carnage, Neptune glanced at the requirements for the Hunting Guild’s mission that she’d accepted before coming out here. The info was all clearly written out on a translucent screen that hovered in front of her, in exactly the type of way that translucent screens shouldn’t: mission objectives _here_, a brief explanation of the problem she was solving _here_, and the signature of the mission’s requestor _here_.

Dogoo breeding season, invasive species, blah blah _blah_. She saw “go here and murder”, which was fine with her. Histoire was always getting on her case about completing these quests. She couldn’t be upset that Neptune was playing hooky today if Neptune was technically working, riiiiight?

Although, she’d fulfilled the objectives about half an hour ago. At this point she was just killing time. And Dogoos. Lots of those.

Neptune dismissed the screen as she spotted another of the little blue monsters. It let out a noise like wet flatulence when she stomped it. She snickered.

“RING,” her phone chimed in with an intellectual discourse about the morality of indiscriminate carnage _vis-à-vis_ sentient species. It was a very concise device.

Neptune retrieved the phone-and-console from her pocket and looked at the screen. No name, just a phone number. “I know who this is,” she smiled deviously. She tapped the device’s screen, ending the cheerful pop music ringtone it was blaring in some language or another. “Hiya girlfriend!” She waved at the device’s self-facing camera when she saw the caller.

“_G-Girlfriend!?_” the ebon-haired girl on the screen stuttered, looking equal parts appalled and horrified. She was sitting in what appeared to be a bedroom; everything from the dresser to the shelves exhibited a sleek modern design in black hues. Her equally-black outfit bristled with white frills like a silky porcupine. “_What the – what happened to you??”_

“Well yeah, we’re friends that are girls,” Neptune explained, ignoring the second question. She was already half-bored with the conversation and was glancing around for something to multi-task with. There was still a disturbing amount of monsters around here, so she continued the misadventures of Nepzilla. Double rawr! “Relax, Noire. There is no possible way I could’ve meant anything else that might be misinterpreted by potential listeners,” she assured her video caller while running through a cluster of Dogoos hiding between the trees. SPLAT, SPLUT, SPLOOT.

“_O-oh. Yes. Right._” The girl on the other end seemed to calm down at that. “_We are…friends. Of course._”

“Girlfriends!” Double-foot stomp, POW, there goes Dogookyo Tower. “C’mon, say it Noire!”

The girl on the screen sighed and shook her head, causing the two ponytails on either side of her face to sway drunkenly. “_Can’t you be serious for more than five seconds? And maybe take a bath or something? I can’t even see your face right now._”

“Nope! Wait, what’ll I get if I do?” Neptune paused again, staring up at the sky with starry eyes. “Will you confess your love to me? Will you buy me pudding!?”

“_Okay, look, I called you to thank you_,_ though I am beginning to regret it,_” Noire plowed ahead with her eyes closed and one brow twitching. Her words carried an unmistakable undertone which Neptune had dubbed the _“I-am-surrounded-by-idiots” _voice, reserved specially for Noire’s close friends.

“Aw, shucks Noire. No need to thank me, but I’ll accept it all the same!” Neptune stood tall and proud amongst the imagined ruins of the monster city, then she paused to scratch her head. “So, uh…why are we thanking me?”

“_What, you don’t remember?_” Neptune didn’t see so much as sense the incredible facepalm Noire performed at that moment. It was strong enough that Neptune could swear she felt the impact shockwave…no, wait, that was her tummy rumbling. Must be lunchtime.

“_You sent me a game earlier today,_” Noire explained. “_I’ve been playing it for a while. At first I hated it, but it became really interesting after the first act. So…thanks._”

All of these dogoos were starting to look like big wobbly desserts. Neptune licked her lips. “I did? That’s weird, I don’t remember it.”

“_Of course you don’t, you have pudding for brains._” There it was again, _I-am-surrounded-by-idiots_, now enhanced with clear frustration.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but please don’t mention pudding right now,” Neptune pleaded. Her stomach had begun eating itself, and her eyes watered from the pangs. It was time to head back to town and eat, but there was a problem. There were no familiar landmarks or exits visible within her field of vision. That meant she’d wandered too deep into the forest, into unknown territory. Whoopsie-doodles.

Okay, no reason to panic, she could easily fix this situation. She just needed to get her bearings first, and to do that she needed a distraction from the gaping void in her abdomen. “Tell me about this game,” she suggested while walking, “maybe I’ll remember it then. Is it _Gears of Rotating? Sass Effect? Super Crash Cousins? God of Accounts Receivable?_”

“_No, no, no, and why would you send me my own game?”_ Noire groaned._ “Ugh, fine, it’s called…“_ KSSHT. A sharp hiss of static muffled the rest of the sentence.

Neptune actually looked at the N-Gear for the first time since the call started. Noire’s image was flickering and distorting. Pixels were moving out of place and discoloring on each frame, like the handiwork of a dying graphics card. During the occasional glimpses of clarity where the image fixed itself for a split-second, Noire looked just as confused as Neptune was.

“…_aaaaaappeeeening? Hello? Hey, Neeeeeep…_” The Lastation CPU’s voice struggled to leak through, robotic and screechy. The screen flickered again, inverting for a second, before cutting to black.

Silence.

“Uh.” Neptune stared at her phone-and-gaming-console-device-thingy, before patting it gently with one hand. “Hello? Noire, you in there?”

Noire was, in fact, not in there. The N-Gear helpfully blinked “CALL ENDED” at her in bold red letters. An equally-helpful icon in the corner of the screen showed zero bars of cell service. She’d wandered out of range.

“Aw, nep,” Neptune muttered, “I forgot to ask her about that weird game she sent me, too.” Then she shrugged. The best way to amend this situation was with an irresponsible amount of sweets. Hopefully she would get a signal at whichever café was brave enough to host her back in town.

Thusly decided, she transformed and flew up into the sky. From there it would be easy to locate the city.

On the ground she left behind countless Dogoo survivors praising the heavens for their salvation. Legends would be told of this day.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

Neptune hummed a nep tune while bouncing along the moving sidewalks of Planeptune City, eating four different types of street vendor food at once. Flying cars zipped overhead in their invisible lanes, occasionally pausing to wait for jetpack-wearing pedestrians. Things were no less chaotic on the ground, with people rushing everywhere to set up decorations. Banners and posters were being strung up on the CFL street lamps and strings of twinkly little lights were getting anchored to the sides of the high-rise chrome buildings. Come nighttime, hoo boy would it be pretty.

The nexus of this commotion was the central district of the city where the Basilicom was located. Coincidentally it was also where Neptune slept at night. Since it wasn’t night and she wasn’t sleepy, she avoided it like a fresh eggplant. This also meant she avoided the worst of the city’s foot traffic _and_ Histoire’s ire. Win-win-win! The fabled triple win.

While meandering, she carefully maneuvered her N-Gear around her armful of food and used one hand to call Noire. She got the same result she’d been getting ever since returning to the city: an error message, “UNABLE TO CONNECT”. The only explanation Neptune could think of is that Noire had turned her phone off. It wouldn’t be the first time; the Lastation candidate was a notorious workaholic who actively avoided distractions from her job. Oh well, she could call Neptune if she wanted to talk. Neptune shoved the device back into her pocket and returned to more important matters, like her food.

She’d given the owners of the stalls quite a shock when she’d waltzed on up, all smiles and sunshine. Especially the first one, where she’d ordered two of everything. Now she bit into a giant pretzel, a banana, some cotton candy, and a _takoyaki_ all at the same time. The combined taste was impressively terrible.

She skipped past a booth selling fireworks, and another selling Neptune plushies. A small girl standing in line with her mother pointed at the passing Goddess in open-mouthed astonishment. The previous transformation had conveniently cleaned all the slime off her and she was once again recognizable, but luckily everyone else was too busy to perform a sequel to that morning’s paparazzi rush.

One might wonder why, today of all days, Planeptune was like this. The answer lay in the date: it was almost time for this year’s E3, whose unabbreviated name was “Gaming Christmas” – the E’s were silent. It was a celebration that happened once a year during the summer. The nations of Gamindustri took turns hosting it, and this year was Planeptune’s turn. Neptune took holidays where she could goof off and maybe eat free pudding very seriously, so the capital city had geared up into full-on festival mode under her direction. Well, mostly Histoire’s direction. Neptune was more of an Idea Girl who came up with cool ideas and then delegated.

Like right now. At this moment she was actively delegating while enjoying her walk. Best boss ever.

With a flourish she devoured the remainder of her food and grabbed a street lamp, spinning around it like a stripper pole. “Nep nep neeeeep~,” she vocalized her nep tune with the cadence of a dying animal. A cat yowled somewhere in response.

She really was looking forward to this year’s E3. It was always considered an opportunity for the host nation to gain more Shares, so it almost always was where big gaming announcements were made. Planeptune would be announcing their new console this year, but it was so secret that nobody knew anything about it. Even Neptune didn’t know anything, which wouldn’t surprise anyone who knew her.

The pocket of Neptune’s hoodie began to vibrate and leak muffled music. She felt inside of it and clasped the familiar shape of her N-Gear. Finally, Noire was calling her back. Neptune hopped off the pole and hastily pulled out the device, tapping the “accept” button.

“_Neptune, where are you!?_” Histoire’s angry face filled the screen.

“ACK!” Neptune physically recoiled, but she was holding the thing she was recoiling from, so she stumbled backwards until she hit a wall and fell down amongst some trash cans. “I’m okay,” she reassured the world. Her hand emerged from behind the trash bags, giving a thumbs-up.

“_We’ve been looking everywhere for you! Are you even in the Basilicom anymore? Your window was broken!_” Here Histoire’s face was briefly replaced with a picture of an emoticon. It was very frowny. Then her real face came back. It was _more_ frowny.

“Oh, I was off in the forest doing that thing Vert does,” Neptune waved a hand dismissively while she stood up and dusted herself off. How’d that banana peel get on her head? “What does she call it, ‘grinding’? The name kinda made sense this time.”

“_You’re supposed to be writing your speech_,” Histoire groused. “_While I appreciate the effort you have put into today’s guild mission…_” She paused for a moment to check something off screen, and her eyes widened in disbelief. “_…the very LARGE amount of effort. That can’t be right.”_

“Hey, are you doubting me?” Neptune mustered the wherewithal to look offended. Histoire’s face was briefly replaced with an emoticon of a sweatdrop.

“…_Regardless, we still need you back here.”_ Histoire looked at the camera again. _ “Please return with utmost haste._”

“Yeah, yeah,” Neptune waved off her advisor and general nanny dismissively. “I just wanna see the city first and, uh, check the festival preparations. Make sure everyone’s doing their job. It’s MY job to do that y’know.”

“_Actually we have assigned IF and Compa to that task. Neptune, please – “_

“Whoops, you’re breaking up Histy, you were too good for him anyway. Gottagobye!” She stabbed the “END CALL” button and was rewarded with sweet, sweet silence. Well, as silent as a city with honking cars and barking dogs could get, anyway.

Ah, bliss.

“RING,” the N-Gear ruined everything. What a killjoy. While she meandered over to the closest café she could see, Neptune checked the Caller ID this time. Oh hey, it was Vert.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

“Lemme see if I’ve got this straight,” Neptune spoke between bites.

In front of her sat diabetes on a plate. It was a disgusting deluge of dairy desserts, including the most important one: pudding. The advertisements in the café window had called it the “Mountain of Madness”, and boasted that not even a Goddess could eat the whole thing. Challenge accepted. The café staff were observing her as arbiters, and the other patrons in the establishment had paused their meals to watch in a kind of fascinated horror as their Goddess engorged herself.

When it had been served to her, it was piled high with enough toppings to be half as tall as her body and she was given a thirty-minute deadline. Five minutes in, she was halfway done. Neptune winked at the nervous-looking staff as she devoured another mouthful of fudge and banana slices, then swallowed and turned to her N-Gear. She’d propped it up against her table’s napkin dispenser so she could talk hands-free, since this particular food fight would require her fabled double-wielding spoon technique.

“You want to create a club for us goddesses? A Goddess Club?” she asked Vert, who was watching her with a mixture of morbid curiosity and amusement. With her question asked, Neptune began to shove desserts into her mouth at a rapid pace, knowing Vert would take over the conversation for a few precious seconds.

“_Well yes, I felt like it would be a marvelous idea,_” the buxom blonde smiled. From below the camera’s frame she lifted up a cup of tea and sipped from it before returning it whence it came. She was quite beautiful and well aware of it, if her outfit’s plunging neckline was any indication. Verdant fabrics wrapped around her curves like a lover would, showing off just enough skin. Behind her was her bedroom – Neptune had spotted a portrait of Virtua Forest on the wall inside an elaborate gold frame, and she recognized the several dozen figurines stationed on the shelves next to it like tiny plastic sentries. A bookcase crammed with games was barely visible off to the side.

“_We could have special club activities for just the four of us and get away from the busywork for a few days,” _Vert continued._ “I got the idea from…_” Her smile faltered for a moment. “_Neptune, dear, you may want to breathe._”

Neptune indeed paused, sucked in a huge breath, and dove back in. She gave the camera an appreciative look.

“_As I was saying, I was inspired by a game I’ve been playing. The characters in it are members of an after-school club. It forms the basis for a clever story and I think you’d enjoy it. Perhaps I should send you a copy?_”

Neptune wound down, knowing a prompt for a response when she heard one. “Ashooammy…um, hain on…” She swallowed. “Actually, it sounds like a game I just played too. Literature club, lots of cookies, kinda boring. I quit it early on. Doki something, I think?”

Vert’s blue eyes glinted knowingly. “_Oh my, that is indeed the game I was referring to. I recommend you keep playing it, it gets…very good later...hmm._” She was staring off-screen now at something and mumbling softly to herself.

“I’m not surprised you’d play a _galge_, that’s right up your alley.” Neptune nodded sagely, as if imparting some great cosmic wisdom. She set her spoons down and focused on the phone call for a moment; there was plenty of time left to finish the challenge, after all. Her display of confidence seemed to break the café owner’s spirit, and he began weeping into the nearest waitress’s apron.

“_Hmm, yes._” Vert was clearly distracted now, only half-paying attention.

“Uh, hello?” Neptune raised an eyebrow. “Gamindustri calling Vert? Come in, over?” She made an exaggerated waving motion in front of the N-Gear’s camera.

“_Mhmm._” Vert bit her lower lip slightly with a look of intense concentration. The blonde Goddess’s eyes were darting back and forth between several points of focus to the side of the camera’s view.

A slow, creeping smile was conquering Neptune’s face one inch at a time. “Vert, how many games are you playing right now?” she asked.

“_Three,_” was the immediate response._ “It would be four, but I need one hand to hold my phone and I only have two feet. Although, perhaps I could use my nose…mental note, try that later._”

“For real, Vert? Doing something else during a call? That’s so rude.” The wry smile had overtaken Neptune’s face and declared itself emperor. Its brief reign ended when Neptune selected a slice of chocolate-covered waffle cone from her pile of half-destroyed toppings and munched on it.

“_I do not know what you mean_,” Vert said. She paused one of her games so she could take a slow draw from her teacup with her pinkie finger extended, continuing afterwards: “_Playing this way maximizes my efficiency. I have allocated ten more minutes to this conversation, after which I will need to begin the next raid with my clan. From there, if I can avoid eating or sleeping, I should be able to…” _She trailed off and began mumbling to herself again.

Neptune could only chuckle and shake her head. She wasn’t really offended – for Vert, this phone call was an impressive display of real-life socialization. All of the Goddesses of Gamindustri had various strengths they played to, and Vert of Leanbox, alias Green Heart, was unquestionably the biggest gaming fanatic of them all.

For example, Neptune remembered the last time she had seen Vert’s bedroom, when the Leanbox leader had invited her over for some multiplayer fun but had forgotten to make her living quarters presentable. Vert had gotten so preoccupied playing an MMORPG between the invite and the arrival that she’d left her entire shameful dating sim collection in plain view when Neptune showed up. The horrors seen that day left deep and lasting mental scars. Neptune would never look at a pigeon the same way again.

It was for this reason that Neptune quickly averted her eyes when she started recognizing some of the spines visible on the bookcase behind Vert. She asked, “So which games are you playing, then?” Her wry smile’s less-ironic heir ascended to the throne as she finished off the first waffle cone slice and moved on to another one.

“_All three are separate instances of Doki Doki Literature Club,_” Vert said. “_I am running them in parallel to select all of the choices and view all of the endings at once."_

Neptune stared at the N-Gear. The dynasty ended as her smile faded from view, replaced by open-mouthed shock. “Seriously?” she asked, “It’s _that_ good?”

“RING,” her N-Gear concurred. A photograph of a familiar person appeared in the corner of the screen; short brown hair framing a young face with big blue eyes, all capped by a large white hat. Neptune quickly tapped the picture, and the video call became a conference call. The screen was divided in half, with the other half now containing the girl from the photo.

“_Hello, Neptune? Oh…Vert’s here too,_” the new girl blinked in muted surprise. “_That’s rare.”_

“Hi Blanc,” Neptune greeted the fourth and final Goddess. “How’re things in Lowee?”

“_Cold and wet,”_ Blanc replied. She was dressed for winter, like usual. White and pale brown hues dominated her attire, complimenting her sandy hair and blue eyes nicely. She did not appear to be in a bedroom, but rather some sort of library or study – walls of spine-facing books lined the background behind her. _"There's a big storm coming in from the east so everyone is gearing up for it._ _Luckily the Basilicom is pretty sturdy, and the girls and I have enough food to last a while, so we should be fine. How're you?"_

“Doing all right. Winning another food challenge.” Neptune smiled and pointed the camera at her plate for a moment before propping it against the napkin dispenser again, facing her.

“_Another one? You’ll bankrupt your own economy._” There was amusement in Blanc’s voice, but it did not show on her face. “_Sorry for interrupting._”

“Nah, you’re fine. Vert and I were just talking about making a Goddess Club.”

Blanc’s eyes lit up. “_That’s a great idea, and it relates to what I’m calling about. I’ve been playing this game…_”

“Hold up.” Neptune stopped her short with an upraised finger. “Let me guess. ‘Doki Doki Literature Club’?”

“_Wha – yeah, that’s right._” Blanc raised her eyebrows slightly and widened her eyes a fraction of an inch, which was about as surprised as she could possibly look. Neptune learned that lesson the first time they tried playing card games together. _“You’ve played it too, Neptune?_” Blanc asked, smoothing out her expression into its usual featurelessness.

“Ehhhh, not really,” Neptune sighed. She sensed building peer pressure to do something she didn’t want to do, and reacted naturally with lethargy. The remaining food on her plate suddenly looked ten times bigger than before. “I kinda stopped playing a couple hours in? It seemed really boring.”

“_You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,_” Blanc chided her. “_I like literature, and this game discusses it a lot. It helped broaden my horizons a bit – I might try reading some manga now.”_

Neptune perked up. “Wait, nobody told me the game had manga too. That’s, like, the only kind of book I read!”

The Planeptune goddess’s mind whirled at the implications. Blanc of Lowee, alias White Heart, was not the type of person who read comics. Far from it; short, quiet, and reticent, she was the quintessential bookworm hermit who always locked herself in her study to read some heavy novel that was thick enough to serve as a home-defense weapon. Neptune always figured it was due to where Blanc lived, way up north where it snowed year-round. Curling up with a book next to a fireplace just seemed like the kind of thing one was supposed to do on a cold wintry night. That, and drink hot chocolate with big fat marshmallows. Mmmm.

To think such a person might be interested in books with more pictures than words…Neptune found herself re-evaluating her opinion of this Doki-Doki game. It was clearly much more interesting than she’d thought, to provoke such a change.

Also, she might have been imagining it, but did the corners of Blanc’s mouth quirk upwards the slightest hint of a degree?

“_I appreciate the game for the myriad choices and romance it offers,_” Vert interjected. “_The mystery of finding out what happens next is rather fun. It is witty as well; there are many humorous scenes you would appreciate, Neptune.”_

Neptune rolled her eyes and said, “oh, all right, twist my arm why don’t ya?” She noticed the café staff looking hopefully at a clock on the wall of the establishment and picked up her spoons again. “Blanc, talk to Vert for a bit, okay? I gotta handle something real quick.”

“_What are you – oh. Oh hell.” _Blanc quickly shifted her gaze away from the display of unfathomable gluttony playing out on her screen, looking to the other member of the conversation. “_W-well then, um…Vert. What would we do in the Goddess Club?_”

“_Just a moment…and, saved. Right, let me see.” _Vert set her controller down and looked at her camera. “_It will be an exclusive club just for us, where we can take a break from our jobs and have fun together.” _She lifted her free hand and ticked off a list of items on her fingers. _“We could play games…and play games…and play more games…_”

“_And read books?_” Blanc suggested.

"_Hmm, yes, of course.” _Vert took another dainty sip of tea with impeccable poise. If one didn’t know better they might have mistaken her for a high-class woman in that moment. She broke the illusion when she opened her mouth. _“We could do both, with my visual novels. Many of them play out like books with pictures.” _She suddenly slammed her teacup downwards out of view; a tiny splash of tea flew off to the side. Vert stared into the camera with stars in her eyes._ “Oh, wait! You should let me introduce you to the BL genre, it’s simply wonderful!”_

_“Seeing you look so excited makes me nervous,”_ Blanc muttered before continuing at normal volume, “_well, if your games are as good as Doki-Doki, I’ll give them a shot._”

Steam erupted from Vert’s nose – she looked fired up in a way that only her favorite genre could invoke. “_We simply must create this club at once._”

“Mmm, and thaf’s a wrab,” Neptune declared before swallowing her last bite. She immediately doubled over, clutching her forehead as an explosion of pain swamped her senses. “Agh, BRAIN FREEZE! Ow ow ow owie ow!”

With a grimace of pain, she grabbed her N-Gear and lurched to her feet. The café patrons applauded her; the café staff bowed politely to her and handed her a prize of 100,000 credits while waving a white flag of surrender and begging her to never come back. They crowded around her, getting as close to pushing her out the door as they could while remaining professional. The owner remained behind on the floor in an “OTZ” pose, on his hands and knees, with his head hanging low.

“I think I just got banned forever,” She reported to her callers in a stage whisper. Then she winced, as even the act of talking hurt.

_"I’d feel sympathy, but after this many challenges I think you kinda deserve it,”_ Blanc quipped. _“So did either of you talk to Noire about the club idea?”_

_“I made an attempt, but sadly she did not answer her phone,” _Vert replied. “_She is likely in the midst of preparations for E3, just like me.”_

_“Just like all of us,” _Blanc corrected. “_Since you’re the host, I bet you have something big planned this year, Neptune.” _

The aforementioned CPU opened the café’s door and stepped out into warm sunlight. It felt glorious on her chilled face and numb lips. She stumbled down the street in the general direction of the Basilicom while massaging her forehead. “I dunno,” she whimpered. “They didn’t tell me anything.” She paused before adding, “They never tell me anything.”

Neither of the other goddesses were surprised. “_It is clearly too important to risk a leak then,_” Vert deduced.

“_Probably the new console,_” Blanc agreed, “_I’ve been hearing rumors about it for months. Allegedly it uses a VR headset and a docking station together to wirelessly stream games. The Internep is calling it ‘Planeptune On’._”

“Oh my goodness! Neptune, I finally found you!” a new voice squeaked out. It came from a taller, longer-haired version of Neptune that had been walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. She had stopped to stare with open concern at the wobbly Goddess. “Wait, what happened?”

“Nepgear!” Neptune wailed dramatically. “My darling little sister! She’s come to rescue me! Oh, take me away please!”

“_Hi Nepgear,_” Blanc greeted.

“Oh, are you calling the other Goddesses?” Nepgear took a peek at the screen and waved. “Hi Vert, hi Blanc!”

“_Why hello Nepgear_,” Vert cooed. “_How’s my adorable little sister doing today?_”

“Vert, you cold-hearted cad!” Neptune groaned. “First I’m betrayed by seductive sweets, and now you try to steal my sister away! Your cruelty is matched only by your cup size!”

An evil smile slithered across Vert’s features. “_Oh my, is that so? Then I am quite cruel indeed._” To make the point she not-so-subtly shifted her position in her seat, causing her impressive bosom to jiggle.

The reaction was immediate, as actual emotion crossed Blanc’s features for the first time in the call: her eyes narrowed and her eyebrows bumped into each other. Almost immediately her ultimate poker face reasserted itself, erasing any trace of the crack in her defenses. “_Speaking of little sisters, mine are calling me,_” she said. “_I’d better make sure they haven’t destroyed anything. Let’s talk more, later._”

“Good to see you, Blanc. Say ‘hi’ to Rom and Ram for me,” Nepgear waved again. She looked like her typical friendly self at that moment; her innocent eyes were wide open and her smile was beaming. Unlike Neptune she wore an actual outfit patterned after a school uniform, though neither of them actually went to school since their education was performed through private tutoring. Neptune had always wondered about the odd fashion choice but always forgot to mention it.

The thought fled Neptune’s head again as her comparatively-taller younger sister (which was another thing that didn’t make sense) grabbed her under the arm and lifted her upright, almost pulling her up off the ground entirely. “Come on Neptune, let’s get you home. It’s this way,” Nepgear pointed.

Vert released a long-suffering sigh. “_Sadly, I must leave as well. I’d love to stay and talk with Nepgear, but the raid is soon and my guild needs me. Another time, then.”_

After exchanging farewells, the call finally ended. Neptune was able to store her N-Gear and devote both hands to her facial massage while her sister coaxed her along. Unfortunately, the two of them together attracted much more attention than just Neptune alone, enough to even make busy people stop and stare.

“The Divine Sisters! Quick, take a photo!”

“Nepgear, I’m your biggest fan! Look this way!”

“Is it true what they’re saying about the new console?”

The sporadic click of camera shutters crescendoed into a dull cacophony. Neptune winced and glanced sidelong at her sister. “Guess we’re transforming,” she said.

“If you insist,” Nepgear said. She looked reluctant; probably performance anxiety. “Together, then?”

“Together.” Neptune grabbed her sister’s arm and raised it alongside her own.

In stereo, they yelled: “ACCESS!”

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

“Come on, please?” Nepgear begged as they walked into their bedroom in the Basilicom. “Just for a little bit. Histoire doesn’t know we’re back yet, and I won’t tell her if you won’t.”

Neptune sighed, feeling like a trap was slowly closing around her. Her younger sister was a naturally curious person who was always studying some object or another to figure out how it worked. This was especially true with machines: she was often caught reverse-engineering whatever new tech the other nations produced, which had led to some awkward conversations with the other Goddesses who preferred that their tech secrets remain proprietary.

During their flight home, Nepgear’s curiosity had risen again. She had asked about the subject of the international phone call she’d interrupted. This led to Neptune explaining what a _Doki Doki Literature Club_ was, which led to Nepgear asking to see the game.

Neptune really should’ve seen it coming.

“But it’s so boring,” she groaned, flopping on the lower of the room’s two bunk beds. It was the same argument she’d been repeating the last few minutes. It was her only argument, actually.

“It won’t be if we play it together,” Nepgear argued back. “We can act out the lines and everything. It’ll be fun!”

Neptune rolled her eyes and gave up. “Fine, but I reserve the right to say ‘I Told You So’ one hundred billion times.” She tossed her N-Gear at her sister, who caught it with a pleased little squeak.

“Okay, give me a sec.” Nepgear turned towards the large TV placed in front of the room’s big red couch. Her thumbs moved so fast they blurred. Instantaneously, the TV switched views to mirror the N-Gear’s screen.

“Wow, you’re pretty good,” Neptune marveled.

“I’ve just had practice,” Nepgear downplayed it while browsing through the device’s files. “I operated the N-Gear a lot while prototyping its design. This is it, right? The ‘DDLC’ file?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Sometimes I forget that you’re a genius inventor. Did you do any work on the new console?”

“NDA, sorry. Uh, is it supposed to do that?” The screen was flickering a bit, and small bits of text were popping up in jumbled clumps in the corners.

“Yeah, it did that the first time, but it didn’t crash so whatever.”

“Might be a driver issue. I’ll look into it later,” Nepgear said. The title screen came up, and her eyebrows came up as well. “Really?”

“_Do-ki do-ki!”_ the screen cheered.

“Yeah, the other Goddesses wouldn’t shut up about it,” Neptune smirked. “Get this, _Noire_ of all people sent it to me. She said she found it on the Internep and really liked it.”

“What the goodness? That doesn’t sound like her at all.”

“Right? You want the ‘Continue’ option, over there.”

“Can’t I start a new game?"

“Heck no, I’m not sitting through all of that again. Trust me Nep Jr., you aren’t missing much. I’ll fill you in as we go.”

“Well, all right then…”

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

“Just a few minutes” turned out to be closer to “just a few hours”. Despite herself, Neptune wound up getting drawn in to the goofy storyline. It helped that she and Nepgear took turns reading the text aloud in the silliest voices they could imagine, easing the ennui of the more boring parts. There actually was some good bits of writing to be found as well – she found herself laughing at the jokes, both the clever ones and the terrible ones. Especially the puns.

The debate over which girl to pursue romantically had been a fierce one. Neptune was a big fan of the tall and elegant girl (her hair was purple, Neptune’s favorite color) while Nepgear preferred the tiny and spunky girl, who reminded her a lot of someone else she knew. They finally settled it with the most time-tested method available – Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Neptune won. Again. That made it her 52,351st win in a row. While Noire was a skilled worker, Blanc was incredibly intelligent, and Vert was both charming and shrewd, Neptune’s strength was being really good at Rock, Paper, Scissors. It was probably the most useless superpower in Gamindustri.

Defeated, Nepgear selected the options that Neptune chose. Getting closer to one of the girls in this game required the player to create poems which would cater to their favored girl’s tastes. In this case the tall and elegant girl enjoyed the horror genre, so her poems needed to be somewhat macabre. The story continued: midway through preparing for a school festival, one of the girls they hadn’t pursued went missing. When the protagonist found her at last, she confessed to suffering from severe depression.

“Wow,” Neptune muttered, watching the girl onscreen pour out her feelings. “This got super cereal all of a sudden, heh.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Nepgear agreed. “Maybe we should’ve picked her after all. Do you want to re-load?”

“Too late, we already overwrote it. That’s what I get for using just one save file. Curse my reckless habits!” Neptune straightened up a bit from where she’d been reclining cross-legged on the floor next to her equally cross-legged sister. “Eh, whatevs. Let’s just see what happens.”

They continued. The girl wound up confessing romantic feelings for the protagonist, which Neptune rejected – reluctantly. The scene ended on a dark note, with the protagonist and the girl fleeing in different directions.

“It’s okay, I can fix this,” Neptune assured her sister. “The next time we make a poem, we’ll make one for her.”

Nepgear was less than confident in this plan. “Won’t that just make things worse?”

“Trust your big sister, okay? I’ve played enough games in my day that I know how this goes. C’mon, keep going.”

The next in-game day, the protagonist showed up at the literature club and discovered the girl who had confessed to him was missing again. He rushed over to the girl’s house and forced his way into it out of concern. He repeatedly called out her name and was met with silence.

“Uh-oh,” Neptune muttered. “Classic B&E. That’s a flag.”

“_There’s no response,_” Nepgear read off the screen. “_I really didn’t want to have to enter her room like this…isn’t it kind of a breach of privacy?_”

“Yer darn tootin’ it is,” Neptune nodded. “She’s probably listening to music with headphones! Man, where did I miss the option to not be a creepy stalker guy?”

“_But she really leaves me no choice,_” Nepgear continued. “Sis, I’m scared.” Her hands holding the N-Gear were shaking. She looked at Neptune with wide eyes.

“Relax, Nep Jr,” Neptune reassured her younger sibling. She clasped both of her hands over Nepgear’s. “It’s probably one of those scenarios where the girl is in her underwear, leading to wacky hi-jinks. I am one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-percent sure it’ll be okay,” she smiled, full of confidence.

The younger sister stared at the older one with no small amount of awe. At that moment Neptune seemed like some sort of ancient gaming sage, practically radiating nerd enlightenment. Nepgear took a shaky breath and let it out, turning back to the screen. “O-okay. _I gently open the door…_”

“OH, SHIT!” Neptune screamed.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

**You’ve unlocked a special poem. Would you like to read it?**


	2. Whoopsie

_Goddess Neptune acts like a buffoon._  
_ Her whole life is lived like a lampoon._  
_ She can fall from quite high,_  
_ And they all wonder why,_  
_ But she knows she is just a cartoon._

_Lady Noire is a big tsundere,_  
_ and she sometimes won’t mean what she’ll say._  
_ You would think she is grim,_  
_ Since she always looks prim,_  
_ But she’ll die if you see her cosplay._

_Tiny Blanc makes the baddest guys cry,_  
_ But to friends she is quiet and shy._  
_ So you know shit is real,_  
_ Time to beg and to kneel,_  
_ When she glares with her red-circle eye._

_Then there’s Vert, the big-boobed CPU._  
_ She seems dainty and sweet, through and through._  
_ If she gets a new game,_  
_ She will live up to fame,_  
_ And be stuck to her screen like it’s glue._

_As each girl has grown up she’s been groomed,_  
_ And her role in this world is assumed._  
_ If the monsters come play,_  
_ She must hold them at bay,_  
_ Which means we now appear to be doomed._


	3. Act 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When there's something strange  
in your nearby environs  
call Detective Nep

Muffled wailing echoed through the halls of the Planeptune Basilicom, like some tormented banshee screeching from the afterlife. People of every profession who walked and worked in the building did so under tension, unable to escape the omnipresent noise. Priests giving their daily service to packed crowds in the worship halls spoke a bit louder than normal; bureaucrats negotiating trade agreements in the conference rooms did their best to tune it out. To nobody’s surprise, tourism that day suffered a sudden, sharp drop.

As one ascended the Nep Tower that stretched above the rest of the building the noise became louder, until it reached peak volume on the top floor. It was there, near the epicenter, where a tiny blonde girl sat on an open-faced book. Strangely, the book didn’t seem to mind; it hovered in the air and lifted her up with it. Gravity’s repeated attempts to demand an explanation went unanswered. Also unanswered were the repeated inquiries by the other laws of physics that stated the two fairy-like wings made of pure data should not be hovering behind her back, visibly unattached yet tethered to her by some invisible force. They fluttered gently as she tried to process the situation.

“How long has she been like this?” she asked with a sigh.

Next to her, Nepgear stood rigid. She was pale and sweaty, but not from warmth, and it took her three tries to calm down enough to speak. “A, a few minutes now,” she replied. Her eyes were wide, gazing at some unseen point in the far-off distance. She let out a mirthless laugh, “Heh…heheh…oh, y-you should talk to her, Histoire.” A spark of something, some mad inspiration, brought her back to the present and she blinked rapidly, focusing on the person next to her. “You can talk to both of us! Please! I…we need it.” She sagged under some unknown burden, looking for all the world like a pitiful abandoned puppy. “Please…”

Histoire closed her eyes and contemplated her lot in life. Once again, it would fall on her and her supercomputer brain to be the sole voice of sanity in this absurdist fever dream. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

“Very well,” she said at last. “Let’s go in.”

As they opened the door, the wailing quadrupled in volume. Nepgear doubled over with her hands on her ears; Histoire was grateful she was a digital being as she simply turned off her auditory sensors, plunging the world into stark silence.

Through the remaining window blinds, the setting sun cast a vibrant orange tint over the room’s lilac pastels and dappled a large lump that quivered under the covers of the bedroom’s namesake. Having identified the source of the noise, Histoire glided into the room on her book like it was some sort of hoverchair. She passed by a strange sight; an activated N-Gear laying on the floor. Its bright screen displayed the image of a corpse that might have once been a schoolgirl, hanging limply from a noose. Histoire paused to stare at it for a moment before moving on.

Though Histoire was deaf, she was still capable of perfect speech; so it was that as she approached the bed, she projected with perfect clarity at 200% volume, “NEPTUNE.”

The lump ceased its shaking. It shuffled for a bit and moved towards the edge of the bed. A feminine hand gripped the edge of the covers and threw them aside.

Neptune looked wretched. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes were crumpled, and her eyes were red and puffy with tears that even now streaked down her cheeks. She sniffed deeply and wiped her nose on her sleeve, a bad habit that Histoire had warned her against countless times. The artificial book-fairy didn’t have the heart to lecture at that moment.

Neptune’s mouth moved. Histoire belatedly activated her sensors again, catching the end of the sentence. “-is dead! Histoire, she’s dead! A-and I tried to reload, but it wouldn’t let me! S-she’s dead and it’s all my fault!” Neptune looked ready to break down sobbing again at any second.

For the sake of the Basilicom and all its inhabitants, Histoire quickly moved to prevent another episode with her hidden Sure-Fire Comfort Technique Mk 2: “Open Invitation”. She lifted her arms, fully extended, in Neptune’s direction and waited.

“HISTOIIIIIRE!” Neptune leaped at her guardian in a flying tackle. The hologram of Histoire’s body did little more than distort for a moment as Neptune passed clean through it, tumbling over the book and landing hard on her head. “GACK!”

With her distraction successful, the image of the tiny blonde girl looked around until she found Nepgear. The younger sister was sitting on the bed now, still staring off into the middle distance, still shell-shocked.

“What happened?” Histoire asked them both.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

Histoire stared at the N-Gear. It stared back.

As a hologram, she could not interact with it, but the book underneath her that projected her hologram could. Fortunately for her Nepgear was the accommodating sort. At Histoire’s request the younger sister willingly retrieved the device and placed it on the book’s nanomachine-laced pages, between Histoire’s illusory legs. She studied it while listening patiently to the ranting of the traumatized girls. At first it had been difficult to get them to open up, but then once they started talking they apparently were unable to stop.

The Planeptune sisters weren’t strangers to death. Several times over the years they had dealt out capital punishment to various criminals and ne’er-do-wells, to say nothing of the countless monsters they had personally sacrificed in the name of getting stronger. However, this was the first time it had affected them so deeply, and Histoire needed to know why. She suspected that the N-Gear was to blame before the conversation began, and as Neptune’s hurried explanation and Nepgear’s additional comments became more wildly gesticulated, those suspicions were confirmed.

The schoolgirl on the console-phone’s screen swayed slightly, her face slack, her eyes glazed over. On top of the disturbing imagery, the device was playing a broken, disjointed melody that sounded like it was coming from a badly out-of-tune music box. It only took a moment for Histoire to correctly identify it as a horror game.

Now there was a genre she had a love-hate relationship with. She liked the concept behind it, provoking a reaction in the player to alter them in some way, but she hated the risk it posed to Neptune and Nepgear. The entire religion and economy of Planeptune depended on those girls remaining exactly as they were, pure and innocent. Thus, Histoire had always taken great pains to keep her charges away from horror movies, shows, and games. She didn’t know how one had slipped past her, but that no longer mattered at this point.

Despite being unable to feel it, the data-fairy found her fake fingers caressing the surface of the N-Gear. It was strange, she thought, that so much fear and doubt had been caused by such a small thing. She herself was small, no more than three feet in height, and as she examined the device she felt a certain kinship with it. Both of them were tiny fish, making large splashes in the ocean of the world.

Neptune showed signs of winding down now, slumping onto her bed in sudden exhaustion. Histoire’s decision for what to do crystallized in her mind. She pointed at the N-Gear with one miniscule hand and announced: “I’m confiscating this.”

Needless to say, it wasn’t the reaction Neptune had been expecting, and she articulated as much. “Bwah?”

“You’re what?” Nepgear asked, slightly more coherent but no less shocked.

“Perhaps you’ve forgotten,” Histoire pondered openly as she established a wireless connection to the N-Gear and sent a command to turn it off, “but you are not a couple of schoolgirls enjoying summer vacation. You are the CPU and CPU Candidate of Planeptune.” Her eyes suddenly blazed with angry fire. Literal fire, with accompanying smoke; all fake, of course. She pointed accusingly at the older of the two sisters. “And what do I find you both doing instead of preparing for Planeptune’s most critical announcement in years? Well, Neptune!?”

Neptune seemed to deflate, shrinking into herself. Histoire turned her wrathful gaze and pointing finger to Nepgear, who looked like a wax statue that wanted to melt.

Histoire could sense her core heating up from stress. Her finger flickered and glitched, the image tearing for a moment before restoring itself. Her system threw a warning at her; she dismissed it violently, glaring at her incredibly irresponsible charges. Why did the most important person in this nation have to be so…so…so _Neptune?_ There really was no other word to describe the immense disappointment she was tasked with raising, teaching, advising, and supporting. Nepgear was no better; she seemed reasonable on the surface but always spoiled her older sister rotten through a combination of familial love and a desire to please. As a result she would always go along with whatever mischief Neptune invented, offering little more than minimal objections.

“S-sorry,” the aforementioned younger sister squeaked out, trembling all over. Neptune had gone pale and mute, staring at some incredibly fascinating spot on the floor.

Not for the first time, Histoire wished she lived in Lastation instead. Noire and Uni were such diligent workers…but pining for the impossible was useless. She needed to be practical, because _someone_ had to be. This is why she forced herself to calm down, displaying the image of herself exhaling a large breath.

“Be thankful this is all I’m doing,” she warned the divine sisters. “Now, here is what is going to happen. Nepgear, you will come with me to the dining area to finish our plans for the post-announcement feast, we still need to pick out decorations and contact an appropriate caterer. Neptune, you will work on your speech, _and nothing else_. When you are finished, find me and I will proofread your draft.”

“Wait a tick, I can’t write like this!” Neptune protested. She quailed under the sight of Histoire’s hologram transforming into a black silhouette, surrounded by a red aura of murder. “A-actually, I’m suddenly in a creative mood! Speeches, yay…!”

“Celestia guide me,” Histoire mumbled a brief prayer as her normal image faded into view. “We are doing this, no arguing. Let’s go, Nepgear.”

The younger of the two sisters could do little more than shrug apologetically to her sibling as she trailed behind Histoire, exiting the room and closing the door.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

For a long time Neptune sat there, mulling over the events of the past day in her head.

She glanced over at an undisturbed corner of her room, where a dusty writing desk sat alone and neglected. On it lay a pencil and a single sheet of paper, placed there that morning before she got distracted. She stood and approached it. An equally-dusty chair was docked under the desk, which she pulled out and flopped gracelessly into.

The page before her was pristine and blank, a perfect rectangle of white. Neptune leaned her elbows on the desk. She picked up her pencil and twirled it between her fingers.

Writing, huh…

She’d never given much thought to the task before. Neptune’s life was hedonistic and improving her skills had never been her foremost priority, but she couldn’t deny that the time she’d just spent making poems together with her sister was kinda fun.

Except that every time she recalled those memories…there, it was happening again.

Neptune gently massaged her throat with one hand, trying to remove the sudden tension in the muscles there. It was becoming hard to breathe under the pressure. If she closed her eyes she could almost feel rough fibers encircling her neck, stretching taut and crushing her windpipe.

She shook herself hard. Histoire had shocked her back into reality and she intended to stay there, rather than whatever disturbing place the _Doki Doki Literature Club_ was offering. What a horrible game. Neptune had half a mind to find the creator and sue for false advertising. It wasn’t right, displaying such a happy-go-lucky exterior before blindsiding her with…_that. _She was having a hard time mustering her usual humor after it. Something about it had hit her hard, harder than she’d expected.

Still, for all its problems the game had also been educational, dispensing useful advice for a budding author. The girls in the Literature Club had suggested using writing as an emotional outlet. That seemed appropriate right now.

Before she even realized what she was doing, Neptune’s pencil was scribbling words onto the paper: a meaningless stream without conscious thought. One sentence, two, three, four…

Nepgear slammed the door open with a crash. The pencil’s tip snapped off as Neptune almost stabbed through her desk in surprise. She looked over, wide-eyed, as her sister held up an N-Gear. It was a different model from Neptune’s, bulkier and less refined, and on its screen a young girl with black hair seemed to be holding back tears under a thin veneer of anger.

“Nepgear,” Neptune uttered, “What…?”

“It’s an emergency!” Nepgear interrupted her, breathless with urgency. “Uni says that something’s wrong with Noire!”

In an instant Neptune was on her feet, hurrying to her sister’s side. “Yo, Uni, what’s up?”

“_Don’t you ‘what’s up’ me,_” the younger girl snapped. She seemed in many ways to be a smaller version of Noire, with a similar hairstyle; however, she used different hair clips for her twintails and her black dress was sleeveless. “_Ever since you sent that game over,”_ Uni glared,_ “Noire has locked herself in her room! We can’t get through to her and nobody knows what’s going on!_”

“Huh? Wha’chu talkin’ ‘bout? I didn’t…wait. What game?”

“_I don’t know, something about a…a club, I think?_”

A creeping sense of unease tingled the back of Neptune’s neck. She focused on the image of Uni’s face with laser precision and asked, “_Doki Doki Literature Club_?”

Uni’s eyes widened with recognition, then narrowed accusingly. “_Yes! That’s it! Why’d you send that to her!?_”

“I didn’t. Honest!” When the other two stared at her in confusion, Neptune elaborated: “Noire called me earlier to thank me for sending her something, but I don’t remember doing it. Then the call got cut off.”

“Neptune…” Her sister looked like she was undergoing some terrible epiphany. “Where did you say you got your copy of _Doki Doki _from?”

Neptune realized it too. “Noire sent it to me.”

Silence. All three of them exchanged horrified looks with each other.

“_You need to get over here,_” Uni declared.

Neptune nodded. “I’m on my way. Histoire…?”

“I’ll make up something,” Nepgear offered, putting on a brave face. “I already lied to her once. I told her I needed to use the restroom when I felt my phone vibrate. What’s one more lie?” She smiled weakly. “Take my N-Gear too, so you can stay in contact with Uni.” She handed over the thicker device.

“You’re the best, Nep Jr. Uni, TTYL, don’t touch that dial.”

“_Please hurry,_” the Lastation CPU candidate urged her.

Neptune pocketed the device at the same time she turned to her poor abused window. She gave it a mental apology as she pointed at it and yelled: “ACCESS!”

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

It was a clear night in Lastation.

That alone was cause for surprise to many. The nation was not known for its clean energy, and smokestacks tended to fill the air with smog at all times. However, a storm front had just rolled through, cleansing the atmosphere for a brief time. This break in the clouds let moonlight shine down on the capital city, but the storm wasn’t done yet - thunder rumbled in the distance, promising more rain to come. Remnants of precipitation still dripped from the copper pipes strung along the walls of the high-rises, carrying steam throughout the metropolis for both power and heating. A cool breeze drifted over the rooftops, wet with moisture.

On the ground, people were departing their places of business for the evening, heading back home or heading out for a drink. Laughter erupted from multiple taverns scattered throughout the city and from the main thoroughfares where people walked. A couple held hands as they entered a city park. They paused to appreciate the public performance of a saxophonist doing a jazz solo. The final note was met with delighted applause from a small crowd of onlookers.

If any of them had bothered to look up, they might have seen the streak of light that flew overhead.

At the center of the city, in the shadow of a gargantuan satellite dish, lay the nation’s Basilicom. Behind the immense curvature of metal that stretched the distance of multiple blocks, a balcony jutted out from the top floor. Here stood Noire, alias Black Heart, as she stared up at the stars in wonder.

She watched the streak of light as it arced low across the sky, growing larger, and revealed itself to be a blazing purple comet. It adjusted its trajectory a bit, now aiming directly towards the balcony. Noire didn’t even bat an eye in response.

Mere feet before impact, the comet halted in midair with the roar of twin jets. The fireball vanished in a cloud of smoke that the cool breeze washed away, leaving Purple Heart behind. “Noire! Are you okay?” she asked in a voice full of worry. She brandished a large sword in both hands, striking a battle pose. Her eyes darted around, searching for threats.

The Lastation CPU gave her friend a warm smile. “Hi, Neptune.” She stepped aside and motioned to the two chairs she’d set up side-by-side on the balcony behind herself. “Mind coming down here? I’d like to talk to you.”

After a few moments of tension, Purple Heart looked at Noire directly. Her heartbeat and breathing gradually slowed from their frantic pace to something more reasonable. “I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.” She lowered her weapon. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Oh I’m fine. More than fine.” Noire motioned to the chairs again. “Come on, I won’t bite.”

“Well, if you insist.” Purple Heart de-transformed, depositing Neptune onto the balcony. Now that she got a better look at it, the location fit Noire well; like everything she owned, it was sleek and modern with dark tones. Two chairs, a table, and a couple potted plants filled out the space – simple and effective. The tall glass doors that led into Noire’s bedroom were closed, but the lights inside were turned on, casting the scene in spotlight illumination. This was fortunate, since Noire’s choice of dress code would have otherwise made her near-invisible in the dark – a disembodied face floating above detached pieces of white frill.

Neptune turned to look behind herself. A sea of twinkling city lights was capped by a sea of twinkling starlight, with the full moon reigning supreme above all. It was an impressive view: much like Planeptune, Lastation’s Basilicom was the tallest building in the city, and Noire occupied the penthouse suite at the top. However, unlike Planeptune’s futuristic chrome and curves, Lastation tended towards art deco architecture that emphasized brass. For a moment she focused on the nearest skyscraper, which was a study of intricate triangular windows arranged in a pattern of arcs. Taken altogether under the pale moonlight, the scenery looked exquisitely beautiful. Thoughts of what to say fled Neptune’s mind as she merely stood and absorbed the view in silence.

She swallowed and finally uttered, “Wow.”

A giggle shattered Neptune’s reverie. She blinked hard, turning to stare at the source. Noire lounged in one of the two chairs, cast in silhouette by her bedroom lights. She swirled a glass of some dark red liquid in one hand. “If you like it so much, you should move here,” she joked.

“Did…did you just…” Neptune couldn’t articulate the question. That giggle had sounded a lot like Noire’s voice, but that was of course impossible, because Noire was the last person in the entire universe who would do such a thing. It was akin to hearing Nepgear speak fluent Martian, or watching Blanc reveal she was actually an exploding penguin.

And now that Neptune was paying attention, she noticed something else: Noire’s hair was different. Where once there had been two twintails, now only one remained, affixed in place by a red ribbon tied into a large bow.

_What the heck?_ Neptune wondered. Her sense of unease returned, forming beads of cold sweat on her forehead.

Noire arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Are you going to sit down or just stand there and gawk at me?” she smirked. “I know I’m attractive, but still.”

“I…” Neptune took a long look at the second chair. It looked pretty normal and chair-like. No hidden teeth ready to eat her, no hidden springs primed to launch her into orbit. “O-okay,” she agreed at last, walking stiffly over to the piece of furniture and sitting in it. The seat itself was comfortable, but she didn’t feel comforted.

Something was really, really wrong. She didn’t know what it was, but it permeated the air: a sense of fundamental error that left her unable to relax.

Noire took a sip of what Neptune presumed was some sort of wine, if the odor was any indication. Her eyelids were lowered to half-mast and a faint blush graced her cheeks alongside a lazy smile. _Is she tipsy already!? _Neptune wondered with alarm.

“I can’t remember the last time I did this,” Noire said conversationally. “Before I became a CPU, probably.” The bright orb of the moon reflected in her pupils. “You ever miss those days, Neptune?”

Neptune hesitated to answer for a moment, waiting for the other shoe to drop, before she gave herself a mental slap. Noire was her friend. She was fine, everything was fine, she could relax and stop being paranoid. She shook her head and blurted, “I wouldn’t know.”

“That’s right,” Noire muttered, “your amnesia. I forgot, sorry.”

Silence. Clouds drifted by above. A police siren wailed distantly, somewhere in the city below.

Neptune swallowed again, licking her suddenly-dry lips. “I-I was worried about you,” she stuttered at last. “We all were. What…” She took a deep breath and let it out, trying to forcibly ease her rattled nerves. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.” Noire drained her cup. From the ground next to her chair she lifted up a wine bottle, and from seemingly nowhere she produced a second glass. “Want some?”

Neptune eyed the bottle like one does a coiled rattlesnake. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Aw, you sure?” Noire pouted cutely. It was another very un-Noire-like action that Neptune had never seen before, and it did some incredibly weird things to the Planeptune CPU’s stomach.

“Guh,” Neptune replied, requiring several seconds to remember how words worked. “Um. Y-yes.”

Noire shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She set the second glass on the table, poured herself a second serving, and took a long, slow swig of it. “Kyaah, that’s the stuff!” she grinned afterwards.

Neptune took another deep breath. _Calm down girl,_ she thought to herself, _she’s probably just drunk. Never seen it happen this fast but whatev’s, maybe she’s using the good stuff tonight. Just take it easy_. She exhaled and began, “Look, Noire, I think we need to clear some things up. I came over here because I heard you’d locked yourself in your room?” She ended the sentence with the rising tone of a question, seeking clarification.

There was a moment of awkward silence as Neptune waited for an answer. Noire’s smile lost intensity and finally vanished, replaced by an uncertain twist of the lips. She shifted uncomfortably, grasping her glass with both hands and tapping on it with her index fingers. It filled the dead air with something besides city ambiance and the high-altitude winds.

Neptune noticed the smaller things now that she looked closer, like how Noire’s eyes darted around without fixating on any one thing in particular. Her lips were trembling a bit, and several times she opened her mouth to say something but apparently thought better of it. Finally she did it one more time and vocalized.

“Yeah…I did that,” Noire confessed. “I was just…tired of everything. E3 is really stressful, you know?” She extended an arm to wave at the vista before them. “Meanwhile, I’ve got this great view here that I never stop to enjoy. Now’s a good time to start.” Her blush deepened and she turned her face away from Neptune, mumbling something under her breath. There was a momentary pause as she took another sip of her drink, dragging it out much longer than the previous ones.

Neptune turned back to the city view, watching the distant lights of automobile traffic flicker on the streets. _Relax, you nutjob,_ she admonished herself, forcing her hands to stop clasping together in a white-knuckled grip. She slowly eased back into the chair, but the tension in her neck and shoulders refused to leave.

“Hey Neptune,” Noire spoke suddenly. It caused the aforementioned Goddess to jump a bit. She spun to look at Noire, who asked, “Have you ever wondered what’s out there?” She pointed up at the sky, and the scattering of pale dust writ across it. “Beyond the stars.”

Neptune looked up. It was more than just black with speckles of white; even with the interference from Lastation’s light pollution and the full moon’s glare, other colors shimmered above – hints of deep blue and purple, streaking by in formless bands.

“I never really thought about it,” Neptune admitted.

“I have,” Noire said. Her expression bordered somewhere between sorrow and wistfulness. “I’ve always wondered if there are others out there, somewhere, on some other planet, looking up at the sky and wondering if we exist. Maybe they’re just like us, copies of you and me that live on the other end of the universe.”

“That’s…” Neptune searched her mind for an adjective. “…deep of you, Noire. Honestly, though? I’d rather enjoy this planet than focus on other ones.” She pointed lower, at the urban horizon before them. “There’s so much cool stuff down here. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see it all, but I’d like to try.”

“Mmm,” Noire hummed noncommittally. She reached the bottom of her cup and grabbed the wine bottle again. “Oh, speaking of trying things, I was talking to the other CPU’s earlier? And this Goddess Club idea that the rest of you came up with is so cool.” She turned to Neptune with an excited grin. “I can’t wait for our first meeting, I’ve got so many ideas for what we could do. In fact..." From behind her back she pulled out a long, thin box. Neptune wondered for a moment where Noire had stored it, before the box was shoved into her hands. "Here you go, this is for you."

Neptune stared at the box. It was surprisingly austere, considering who was offering it. No special decorations, no wrapping, and no ribbons. She asked, "What is it?"

Noire just smiled. "Open it and see."

With trepidation, Neptune did just that. Inside was a very familiar school uniform. Her eyes widened.

"You like it?" Noire asked. Neptune looked over at her. The Lastationer looked incredibly pleased with herself. "I thought it would be appropriate."

And there it was. As Neptune stared in complete shock, another full giggle left Noire’s mouth. It was undeniable now; she’d seen it happen. Neptune’s jaw dropped open and stayed there.

“You’re not Noire,” she whispered.

“Hmm?” The black-clad CPU was in the process of draining her third glass. She set it down and regarded her friend with fondness. “What was that?”

Neptune leaped from her seat like it had burned her, throwing the box and its contents to the ground. She pointed a shaking finger at the clear impostor with her friend’s face. “You’re not Noire!” she shouted. “Who are you? Where is she?”

Noire blinked once, then twice, fixing Neptune with a look somewhere between amusement and confusion. “Uh,” she glanced at the bottle in her free hand, “did you sneak some while I wasn’t looking?”

“I know what Noire is like. We’re like, besties for resties!” Neptune declared. She was backing away slowly now, towards the guardrail that separated them from a nasty fall. “You’re not acting like her at all! Who are you really?”

Now the amusement was starting to fade from Noire’s face, leaving just confusion behind. “Neptune,” she said softly, “it’s me. Really.”

“Liar! Where’s Uni? She’ll be able to–”

“Who?”

A single word. That was all it took to make Neptune’s train of thought hit a penny on the tracks. It jumped into the air, careened down into a ditch, and exploded behind her eyes while she opened and closed her mouth in dumbstruck silence. As she watched, Noire’s brow furrowed into a much more familiar look of consternation.

“Who’s Uni?” Noire asked guardedly. “That sounds like a girl’s name. Are you hanging out with another girl, Neptune?”

“I - what??” Neptune reeled. Unexpected mirth filled her chest and she had to force herself not to smile incredulously. “Are you…are you serious? Wow, you’re the worst impostor ever. You don’t know about Noire’s sister?”

Now Noire leaped to her feet. Her glass fell and shattered on the floor, completely forgotten. She glared angrily at her guest. “How dare you!” She burst. “Even for you Neptune, that’s going too far! You know I’ve always…I’ve always wanted…!”

Quicker than Neptune could process it, Noire’s expression flashed from anger into grief. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Why are you being so mean?” she choked out while stifling sobs. “I just wanted to hang out and have fun with you tonight!” The final and most un-Noire-like thing of all happened: she began to cry openly. “It’s me, isn’t it? It’s my fault. It always is.” She bowed her head, staring at the floor as teardrops appeared on it. “I…I…!” A sudden rush of words spilled out of her mouth: “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I didn’t mean it I just wanted to see you ‘cause we haven’t talked lately but I didn’t want to call you and beg a-and I knew you’d come if I…if I…” She took a long and shuddering breath, halting her babble.

Neptune had to admit that seeing her friend’s face twisted in sadness hurt a bit, but she consoled herself knowing that face was fake. “The Noire I know would never apologize,” she declared in deadpan, “she would _never_ forget her sister,” now she stabbed a finger forward, as if going for a deathblow with a rapier, “and she would sound like she was surrounded by idiots right now.”

“Shut up!” Noire yelled, flashing back into anger again. She clenched both of her fists at her sides. “I hate you! Get out of here! Go away!”

“Maybe I will,” Neptune huffed, “and then I’ll find Uni and we’ll find out where the real Noire is, you…you big fat phony!”

That did it. Noire picked up the wine bottle and threw it. Neptune was forced to duck and cover to avoid the projectile as it sailed over her head and off the balcony, far down into the city below. When she looked back up, Noire was gone: her balcony door hung open, as did her bedroom door that led further into the Basilicom.

“…Aw, nep,” Neptune grumbled. She knew better than to try to pursue someone who didn’t want to be found through a building she didn’t know. Instead, she pulled out Nepgear’s N-Gear and began going through the list of contacts. “Let’s just call Uni and…huh?”

Uni’s number was gone.

Neptune stared at the spot where she knew it should be, listed right after _Underwater Ray Romano._ It remained blank, adamantly refusing to make sense. Just on the off-chance that it might work, Neptune rubbed her eyes and checked again. No dice. She skimmed through the rest of the contacts, wondering if Nepgear had saved it under a weird name, despite remembering otherwise. There was nothing under “L” for Lastation, and nothing next to Noire’s number either.

Had she deleted it on accident…? No. Neptune was clumsy sometimes, but not THAT clumsy.

A cold feeling of dread wrapped its icy tendrils around the base of her skull, sending shivers down her spine. Something was really, truly, very wrong.

She looked back over at the Lastation vista. It was no longer beautiful or welcoming, but oppressive. Terrifying unknowns lurked in the shadows between the lights. She backed up slowly until she felt the cool glass of Noire’s bedroom on her back and shoulders.

What should she do? Who should she call? Not Nepgear, obviously, she didn’t have a phone right now. Who else? Neptune glanced down at the contact list again, scrolling through it with feverish haste. Two names leaped out at her.

Rom. Ram.

Of course. All of the CPU candidates were very close friends with each other; if she couldn’t talk to Nepgear, then the Lowee twins were the next best thing. They’d have Uni’s phone number, she was sure of it.

Nepgear selected the contact entry and waited while the N-Gear dialed, feeling her heart pound rapidly against her ribs.

Please pick up…please pick up…please…

“_Hello? Nepgear?”_ A young face framed by long sandy hair popped into view. After a moment she said, “_Oh hi Neptune. Why are you using Nepgear’s phone?_”

“Ram!” Neptune exclaimed in a single exhale of breath that felt like it took her soul with it. “Oh wow, okay, you have no idea how glad I am to see you right now. Is Rom there with you?”

“_H-hello, Miss Neptune,_” a more timid voice spoke up. An identical face with much shorter, chin-length hair moved into view next to Ram.

“Hi Rom! So, um, sorry to call out of nowhere like this,” Neptune began, “But I was wondering if either of you have heard from Uni? If not, could you give me her number?”

Their blank stares did not fill her with confidence. Neptune felt like ice water filled her veins when Ram asked, “_Who’s that?_”

“_She sounds scary,_” Rom murmured. “_Shudder…_”

Neptune tried to swallow, but the blob of concrete in her throat prevented it. _Oh Celestia. Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out,_ she chanted in her mind. “N-never mind! Just a little j-joke, hahaha,” she chuckled nervously. “So, um, how are you two doing? Things going okay over there?”

“_Actually,_” Ram paused for a moment to share a concerned glance with her twin, “_Big Sis has been acting really weird._”

_“It’s creepy, Miss Neptune!_” Rom agreed, her tiny fists wringing the collar of her baby-blue coat.

Neptune felt weakness hit her knees; she staggered over to one of the balcony’s chairs and collapsed into it. “What’s going on?” she asked, freaking out. “What’s wrong with Blanc??”

“_She dyed her hair this ugly pink color,_” Ram made a face. “_Like, really bright pink. It’s sooo tacky._” She herself wore pink, but it was a tasteful pale hue. She lifted up her sleeve to show it off. _“Imagine this but, like, a gazillion times worse.”_

Blanc with pink hair? Neptune tried to picture it and couldn’t: complete imaginative failure.

“_Could you, I dunno, come talk to her?_” Ram looked genuinely concerned, mirroring Neptune’s own feelings. “_She won’t listen to us, but maybe she’ll listen to you._”

_“Please, Miss Neptune?” _Rom begged.

_Deep breaths_, Neptune coached herself. She slapped a wide, fake smile across her face for their benefit and said, “Of course! Don’t you worry about a thing, girls. I’ll talk to your big sister and then we can have a sleepover! In the meantime…” She checked around herself, but for the moment she appeared to be alone on the balcony. “I’ve got a top-secret sneaking mission for you, if you choose to accept it.”

“Ooh, that sounds cool!” Ram’s eyes lit up with stars.

_“Cool_,” Rom echoed with a tiny smile.

Neptune nodded. “Be on the lookout for anything weird, okay? I’ll be there in two wags of a Dogoo tail, and you can tell me about anything you see in the Basilicom.”

“_It’s like we’re spies,_” Ram gasped. The stars in her eyes went supernova, and she gave Neptune a sharp salute while shouting, “_Yes Colonel!_” Beside her, Rom looked excited by mere proxy, and she mimicked her sister’s salute.

“Dismissed, Agents,” Neptune said. “Don’t forget to stay in the Basilicom, okay?”

“_Okaaay,_” they chorused.

Neptune ended the call and stared at the blank screen for a moment, feeling an invisible weight of responsibility crush her from all sides. Unable to bear it, she jerked herself into action and hastily jammed the N-Gear into her pocket. Then she faced the yawning view of Lastation, took a deep breath, and yelled into the night: “ACCESS!”

For the second time that night, a streak of light swept over the city. The people below were none the wiser.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

The fortunate thing about travelling at Mach 4 is that it keeps you warm. The unfortunate thing is that it keeps you TOO warm.

So it was that Purple Heart, piercing through the atmosphere like a supersonic butter knife, didn’t notice the decreasing ambient temperature as she fled northwards and westwards, chasing the tail end of a storm front. Navigation became a delicate mental dance: all at once she was flying, maintaining the shield she was using as a windscreen, ejecting enough heat to not cook herself, and watching the ground for familiar landmarks. Compression caused the air just in front of her shield to ignite in a fireball. The energies she poured into her shield turned the flames purple. It limited her vision, making everything harder.

Far below, vegetation thinned out and was replaced by evergreen trees, only to be covered by an endless sea of white snow soon afterwards. That was her cue to slow down.

At that speed, milliseconds meant the difference between life and death. Luckily, she had access to Blast Processing and easily calculated the necessary rocket science. A perfectly-timed retrograde thrust was enough to decelerate in front of her intended destination, above the horned rooftops of Lowee. The G-forces involved would have killed a normal human, but Purple Heart took it in stride.

For a moment she had to admire the view again despite the urgent situation. Words like “Occidental” and “Oriental” meant nothing in Gamindustri, but if Lowee’s style was to be described by Earthen standards it would absolutely be the latter. The vast city spread out before her, twinkling with a combination of electric lights and snow. Rivers of light flowed through the main thoroughfares, branching off into smaller tributaries that served the residential areas before recombining into the primary channel of the commercial district. Buildings big and small burst up from it as their own black islands splattered with light. Neon signs that flashed characters from the Loweean alphabet hung everywhere, turning the financial heart of the city into a seizure-inducing, slushy mess.

Above it all loomed the Basilicom. Unlike Planetune or Lastation, Lowee’s most important building eschewed the general look and feel of the city’s architecture and displayed a much more unique style. Many of the upper floors in the multi-tiered building bulged outward like the caps of mushrooms, with the countless bright dots of windows decorating the undersides. A pathway that glowed in all the colors of the rainbow spiraled around the perimeter of the tallest tower before coming to a stop near its peak. Purple Heart descended towards it.

A closer look revealed that the flat ramp was very wide, enough for five lanes of automobile traffic. It slowly rose upwards in a lazy incline, constantly shifting hues and casting a kaleidoscopic tint on the rest of the Basilicom. It alone was the one street in the city absent of any snow. Blanc had explained once that Loweean citizens called it the Rainbow Road, and considered it a holy site. Purple Heart could see why: she remembered when she’d traveled up it shortly after being re-introduced to Lowee, post-amnesia. Between the awe-striking path itself and the grand view of Lowee that surrounded it, there wasn’t any other term she could think of to describe the experience except, “magical”.

Unfortunately she had no time to take the scenic route tonight. She aimed for the upper end of the road and the bulbous room it terminated at, speared by the central tower of the Basilicom like an olive on a toothpick. That was where the CPU and her candidate sisters lived.

Alighting on a small balcony that extended out from the entrance to meet the Rainbow Road, Purple Heart walked over to the entrance and pounded on the door. A minute passed by in silence, during which the violet Goddess glanced around herself warily. She heard the click of the doorknob turning and turned back to watch the door. It opened a crack, revealing cautious blue eyes on the other side. Then the door opened further, and the blonde maid that those eyes belonged to backed up and curtsied, gently tugging at the corners of her traditional black-and-white dress.

“Greetings to you Lady Purple Heart,” she said, “and welcome back to the Land of White Serenity. Please come in, milady is expecting you.”

“I remember you,” Purple Heart stated as she entered the room. Immediately the frigid air of the Loweean night was replaced by soothing warmth. “You helped out the first time I came here. Financier, right?”

“Indeed, it is an honor.” Financier closed the door and bowed low, supplementing the traditional Planeptunian greeting with the traditional Loweean one. Even after she straightened up she kept her eyes aimed downward demurely, not meeting the gaze of her distinguished guest. “Lady Blanc sends her apologies for being unable to greet you in person, as she is currently busy meeting with the CPU of Leanbox. She asked me to show you to our guest quarters when you arrived.” She motioned off to the side of the entrance, where an assortment of footwear sat in neat pairs next to a row of soft slippers. “Please return to your human form and set your shoes over there, then follow me.”

It was a custom of the famously fastidious Loweeans: wearing outside footwear inside a house was considered rude, as it implied the visitor did not care about tracking mud or whatever else through the house. Visitors would instead put on slippers at the entrance and wear those instead. None of this mattered to Purple Heart right then, as she was too busy staring in shock at Financier over what she’d said. “Wait a moment,” she said, “Vert is here too?”

Financier nodded. “Yes, though I am not privy to the details of their meeting.”

It would have to be something extremely urgent to force Vert to travel this far away from her beloved games, and there was only one possibility that came to mind. Purple Heart’s transformation unraveled, depositing teenage Neptune onto the floor. She heaved a huge sigh of relief. It was obvious that Blanc had noticed the disturbing events in Lastation and had called Vert to ask for help. They were likely putting together a plan to render assistance at that moment.

After the Planeptune Goddess swapped out her sneakers for slippers, Financier began to walk away without further comment. Neptune followed obligingly. She couldn’t help but observe her surroundings as she did. The interior of the living space was largely manufactured from polished wood with a deep red carpet that Neptune felt her feet sink into slightly with each step. Many of the rooms she passed through glowed warmly under incandescent light bulbs and were lined with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, emphasizing the living space’s fantastical location. Neptune had to force herself to stop admiring the scenery porn outside the windows more than once lest she fall behind. At one point they passed by an open door, and as Neptune glanced into it she spied a cozy study with several plush armchairs angled to face towards a lit fireplace. It was a common sight: several of the rooms had seating and coffee tables available near a heat source, as if Blanc was driven to ensure there was a good spot to read a book no matter where she was.

Finally they arrived at a simple guest bedroom, filled with all the necessary amenities as well as an adjoining bathroom. Financier opened the door but did not enter, and stood beside the entryway instead while Neptune entered it. “Please make yourself comfortable,” the maid bowed again, “and I will notify Lady Blanc of your arrival.”

“Hang on a sec.” Neptune turned from her brief perusal of the room to give Financier her full attention. She watched the maid’s face carefully as she asked, “Could you let Rom and Ram know I’m here, first? It’s been so long since I’ve seen them, I’d like to say ‘hi’ before jumping into a big meeting with the other goddesses.”

To her relief, Financier nodded. “Very well,” she agreed. “Please excuse me.” She clicked the door shut.

Now alone, Neptune turned to regard the bedroom; it had a TV with a remote. She grabbed it and sat on the edge of the bed, turning the device on. Commercial, commercial, commercial, documentary about people in the Central Indies, commercial, talk show with some celebrity she didn’t care about, commercial, commercial…nothing good on, like usual. At least Blanc was considerate enough to include a Loweean game console with a controller in the room, hooked up to the TV; Neptune switched the TV’s video input to it and picked up the controller.

Ooh, it had _Super Crash Cousins Omega_ installed. She liked that one.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

After several enjoyable minutes of fighting on a 2D stage inside of a go-kart, the door suddenly burst open. Neptune flinched in surprise, then was tackled onto the bed by a rambunctious CPU Candidate.

“She was right, you’re here!” Ram squealed, giving Neptune a hug around the waist. Rom followed at a more reasonable distance, giving her neighboring CPU a bashful smile.

“Hi girls!” Neptune greeted them brightly. She moved to tousle Ram’s hair, but was blocked by the Candidate’s large hat so she settled for returning the hug, instead. Not to be excluded, Rom joined them and latched herself to Neptune’s other side. Neptune let out an unexpected sigh of delight. Something unclenched inside her soul; in this moment, within the affectionate embrace of two happy children, nothing could go wrong.

“You stayed at the Basilicom,” Neptune observed. “Good job! So…” She paused to glance around perfunctorily for any listening devices, then leaned in close, “How’s your mission going? What are the haps?” That was Neptune-speak for “_what’s happening?”_

Ram unhooked herself and bounced on the balls of her feet a couple paces away, throwing Neptune a mock-salute. “Yes’m! Big Sis is still suuuuper weird,” she reported. “Rom and I have been re…recon…we’ve been watching her to make sure nothing else happens. Right, Rom?”

“Yeah!” Rom nodded, moving to sit beside Neptune on the edge of the bed. She pointed at the television and murmured, “I like this game.”

“And?” Neptune prodded the longer-haired twin.

Ram shrugged. “And, I dunno. She locked herself in a room with Vert hours ago and won’t let us see her.” Her expression darkened upon admitting that, only to brighten again moments later. “But now you’re here and you’re gonna fix everything, right? Like you always do!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Rom agreed.

Neptune puffed up her chest a bit. It wasn’t often that she got flattered, so she had to appreciate such opportunities when they occurred. “You got it, girls,” she nodded. She nudged Rom and offered the blue-clad girl her controller. “Wanna play a bit while we wait for Financier to come back?”

“Ooooh,” Rom beamed happily, “sure!” She gave the other two a determined smile. “I won’t lose. I’ve been practicing with Princess Pear, you know.”

“Then I’ll choose Princess Rose,” Ram declared as she fetched two other controllers from a drawer under the TV. “Here you go!”

“It’s on like Bonkey Gong,” Neptune grinned, accepting the offered controller. “In fact, that’s who I’m picking. Watch out, I’mma getcha!”

Several minutes passed in competitive chaos as all three of them lost track of their characters on the screen amidst an endless horde of items and level hazards. Things appeared even, with none of the three scoring a huge advantage in terms of points. Too soon for Neptune’s liking, their fun was interrupted by a knock at the door.

The trio looked up as Financier peeked her head into the room. “Apologies for the interruption, but Lady Blanc has requested your presence at her meeting.”

“Showtime,” Neptune smiled. She paused the game and stood up. “Okay girls, ready to go?”

“I apologize again,” Financier bowed low before they could reply, “But Lady Blanc has requested you come alone, Lady Neptune.”

Neptune couldn’t keep the disappointment off her face. She could take a plausible guess at Blanc’s reasons – it would be hard to conduct serious matters of state with two children present – but the Lowee twins were providing her with emotional relief she hadn’t realized she needed. She shrugged, unable to argue against the wishes of her host while she remained a guest in the building. “All right. Hey girls, keep your N-Gear turned on, okay? I’ll keep in touch.”

Neptune may have been disappointed, but Ram was downright moody knowing her sister was avoiding her. “Okay,” she muttered, glaring at the floor with her controller lying forgotten in her lap.

“Please hurry Miss Neptune,” Rom begged. Her eyes were watery with potential tears, and Neptune had to fight down an urge to repeat their earlier hug – she’d be stuck there all night if she kept indulging herself. Instead she merely nodded and gave the two Candidates a reassuring wink and smile, then she followed Financier out of the room. As she closed the door, Rom was unsuccessfully trying to cajole Ram back into playing the game.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

The maid and CPU took a different route this time, ending up at an elevator that threaded through the Basilicom’s central spire. “Ladies Blanc and Vert are in one of our conference rooms on the lower floor,” Financier explained as she called the elevator and stood at the ready, one hand clasped over the other. Neptune supposed that made sense; for something as critical as “_Operation Uni Retrieval”_ or “_Operation Will the Real Noire Please Stand Up” _you’d need some sort of war room, with like…maps…and stuff.

Okay, Neptune had to admit she’d never been inside a war room. But its name implied it meant business, and _she_ meant business right now, so it was only logical.

The elevator sent them plummeting downwards at a disconcerting speed, and for a moment it felt like Neptune was trapped in one of Lowee’s famous theme park rides. But then the lift slowed to a gentle stop, giving a pleasant _ding_ as it did so. The doors opened to reveal a more modest interior than above, with pale cream-colored walls and a hardwood floor. Financier stepped out first, silently motioning for Neptune to follow. She did.

They breezed through a lobby with gentle mood lighting and paintings of Virtua Forest on the walls. Soft trickling sounds directed Neptune’s attention to a cascading waterfall trapped behind glass on one side of the room, accented by a couple fake potted plants that gleamed with plastic. Past that they entered a maze of hallways, and Neptune lost track of where they were after the third turn. Forced to put her faith in her guide, she hoped for the best. Luckily, Financier seemed to know exactly where they were going and strode forward with purpose.

Neptune’s mind wandered, as it had a tendency to do. During her flight over here she’d been plagued by doubts and fears, but seeing that both Rom and Ram were safe reassured her. She'd been acting stupid and paranoid, again. Lastation was clearly an isolated incident. After all, trying out a new hair color wasn’t THAT weird – no weirder than releasing a flagship console in multiple colors, which Lowee had a history of doing.

Based on past experience she could concoct a reasonable theory behind what had happened: Lastation was probably the victim of a staged coup d'état. Someone had kidnapped both Noire and Uni, then installed a fake Noire as a puppet and used some form of mass mind-control to make everyone forget Uni existed. It was a terrible situation that needed a quick resolution, but Neptune could manage it with some help.

Not for the first time, she wished she still had her own N-Gear. Blanc and Vert had probably been trying to reach her for hours, not knowing she’d swapped models with her sister. She would’ve arrived much sooner if she’d known. Water under the bridge, though. She was here now so everything was fine.

She repeated that fact to herself: everything was fine. Except in Lastation, where everything _would_ be fine. Whoever these usurpers were, they were no match for the combined brainpower of three Gamindustri Goddesses.

At last they arrived at a simple door, ordinary in every way. Text in the Loweean alphabet was printed across it and roughly translated to, “_Another Castle._” Financier knocked on it twice, then opened it slightly and poked her head in through the gap, murmuring something Neptune didn’t catch. Then she pulled back out and stepped aside, motioning for Neptune to enter.

The room inside wasn’t what she’d expected. There were no giant TV displays showing tactical satellite photos of Lastation, the table wasn’t a touchscreen made of glass, and the combined military brass of Leanbox and Lowee were not assembled for an emergency briefing. The room was small, painted an off-color white and dominated by a large wood table with ten or so office chairs surrounding it. Only two of them were filled at the moment.

Neptune paused mid-step, her greeting dying stillborn somewhere in her trachea, as the two strangers turned to look at her.

The first was short and thin, with a burst of fluorescent pink hair popping off her head in two pigtails. They, along with her bangs, were kept in place with a multitude of red ribbons. Below her blinding locks were two equally-pink eyes that gazed expectantly at their new guest. Further below that was a schoolgirl’s uniform: a tan jacket over a light orange sweater vest and white collared undershirt, tied closed with more red ribbon. She sat with her arms crossed and an impatient glare on her face.

The second stranger was the complete opposite of the first in body type; tall and curvy, with deep purple hair that outclassed Neptune’s in vibrancy. She blinked at Neptune with equally-purple eyes. If one were to gauge only by her facial expression, they might peg her as being elegant and poised; but they would miss the way her arms moved jerkily, and the way her hands rubbed over the sleeves of her school uniform like there was an itch there that they couldn’t scratch.

Neptune choked, her eyes bulging. She recognized them, but not as her friends: they looked identical to characters from _Doki Doki Literature Club_. It took a long second of staring at their faces to see Blanc and Vert’s facial features, hidden well by the incredibly realistic cosplay. Neptune opened her mouth, but all that came out was a strangled squeak. She didn’t move, frozen to the spot.

Blanc frowned deeply and fixed Neptune with an irritated gaze. “Are you coming in or not? Make up your mind, don’t just stand there with the door open like an idiot.” Her eyes traveled up and down Neptune's body. "Where's your uniform? Didn't Sayo give you one?"

_Way to kill the atmosphere,_ a voice whispered to Neptune. She spun to look in the direction it had come from, but nothing was there.

Vert smiled sweetly. “Perhaps she didn't get the memo. What do you think? Do I seem more like Nepgear’s big sister now?” She preened, shifting a lock of hair out of her face and fidgeting in her seat. “I do enjoy this look. Sayo – u-um, that's Noire, by the way – she did an excellent job with our makeovers.” She blushed as she turned to the shortest Goddess in the room and added, “E-_e__specially_ yours.”

Blanc matched the blush with her own, staining her face a deep crimson. She nearly snarled at Vert in response. “S-shut up, I didn’t dress up like this for you!” She turned away with a huff and mumbled, “I was just sick of people thinking I was a boy…”

_I’m not cute_, another voice whispered, carrying with it a flash of anger that vanished, leaving confusion behind. Neptune turned to look for the source of the voice. Once again, there was nothing.

Her half-formed thoughts shattered when she felt a gentle push against her backside and stumbled forward abruptly, her hands colliding with the edge of the table. She spun around in a wide-eyed panic to watch the door click shut, the sound echoing in her head with finality. A sudden wave of nausea and a sharp stab of fear attacked her at once. She stood there and began to tremble with the effort of fighting them both.

She was wrong.

She was very wrong.

Whatever was happening was not localized to Lastation, it was everywhere. And it was affecting her too.

Tension. It flooded the air, smacking her in the face, amplified a hundredfold. Against it Neptune stood no chance, crumpling like a paper crane under the sole of a shoe. Her vision swam. She staggered sideways on trembling legs, losing her equilibrium to a dizzy spell. It was a minor miracle that she made it to one of the chairs and collapsed into it, shaking heavily.

Images. Sounds. Flashes of noise, of bright color, of pure nonsense. They flitted through Neptune’s mind and were gone, replaced immediately by more of the same. She breathed in the stench of blood and tasted copper on her tongue. _Grinding,_ the voices whispered._ Bolthead. Linear gearbox. Breathing sky. Breathing wheel._

Neptune squeezed her eyes shut. Oh Celestia, what was happening to her? She was going crazy.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Blanc’s voice said. “Your phone has been turned off for hours, so I wasn’t sure you’d show up. I guess you didn't read Vert's email?”

"I suggested that we all write something and bring it to the meeting to share," Vert elaborated. "Oh, b-but it is fine if you didn't bring any today. You can share yours next time."

"I've got mine right here," Blanc said. She chuckled lowly. "Ready to read it and weep?"

_Okay everyone. Poem time._

Neptune couldn’t respond. The assault on her senses was overwhelming. Bits of imagery swept past - a smile, green eyes, cupcakes, scissors, and books. She closed her eyes and hunched over, gasping for breath but unable to muster more than a painful wheeze. Her throat clenched. Bile was rising up within, struggling to fit through a too-small opening. Her hands grasped at the air in front of her, their nails scraping against the table’s wood.

She didn’t know what she was reaching for. Nothing could help her. She felt like she was drowning and there was nothing for her to hold on to, nothing she could use to pull herself to the surface.

She was going to throw up. She was going to suffocate. She was going to die.

_Save me. Load me. _

“Are you all right?” Vert’s voice spoke up, filled with concern. “Nat, she looks ill.” _Get some tea,_ a voice hissed,_ get a knife. _A surge of heat scattered through Neptune before pooling in her arms and groin. She tried to groan and choked instead.

“I see that, Yu. HEY!” Blanc’s voice shouted angrily. There was a shuffling, scraping noise. “Don’t you DARE vomit on my table! I mean it, Neptune!”

Her name. It pierced the red fog like an arrow of light. She was Neptune. That was who she was. It brought to mind a flash of memory, of eyes rolling in exasperation and a voice speaking to her. Irritated. Condescending. Affectionate. Adorable. Surrounded by idiots.

The whispers recoiled. Neptune's stomach settled. She sucked in a gasping breath, once, twice. She opened her eyes to a world blurred and distorted by unshed tears. A pair of bright pink irises wavered in front of her. She blinked, clearing her vision.

Blanc was sitting next to her now, leaning over so her face was within Neptune’s view. The tiny girl’s anger was tempered by worry as she watched the Planeptunian struggle to beat back her body’s symptoms.

Involuntary shivers crawled up Neptune’s spine. The face in front of her was wrong. It was so wrong. It was Blanc but it wasn’t, familiar yet not, yet familiar again. The voices delighted in her shock, breaching the crack in her defenses – her memories scattered into fragments. She reached for them and grabbed air.

Pink eyes melted into swarms of black. Bloody tears. A too-wide smile. Neptune blinked again, and reality returned.

“Yu, get the trash can, will ya?” Blanc asked. “Come on, Nep, relax. It’s just us here.” A tiny hand massaged Neptune’s back in slow circular movements. She leaned into the touch with desperate hunger.

Whimpering next to her ear: _I miss Mister Cow._ Neptune cringed under a wave of sadness. A silent sob wracked her, clenching her chest.

“Aw shit, now she’s crying,” Blanc grimaced. “Geez Neptune, what’s gotten into you?”

Pain in her abdomen. Piercing, searing, gut wrenching, throbbing. Fifteen different kinds. Neptune stared at her unblemished belly, not understanding why she was still whole. Where was the blood?

“Hey,” Blanc shook her, “Look at me.”

The jostling did no favors for Neptune’s physical state, but it did get her attention. She met the new-yet-not-new eyes with her own trembling ones and tried to speak. The sound she made would’ve been better suited for a mouse or other small rodent, but it was the best she could generate at that moment.

“Here you go,” Vert’s voice broke in. She stepped into view and handed over a metal bin with a smile. Neptune’s mind supplied the rest: blood splatter across her cheek, eyes glazed by death–

Neptune barely grabbed the container in time, shoving her face into it as she heaved and gagged. The Mountain of Madness erupted from her mouth like a bitter volcano.

“Oh yuck,” Blanc choked. “That’s just…eugh.”

It felt like an eternity passed. But eventually, mercifully, Neptune’s stomach was emptied. She continued to dry heave afterwards for a minute or two, her muscles spasming painfully, before exhaustion took her. She collapsed onto the table and rested with her eyes closed. Its surface felt wonderfully cool against her cheek.

“H-hey, you okay now?” Blanc’s voice seemed a little shaken by the display.

Neptune’s throat was on fire. Trying to speak was like trying to gargle needles, but she did so anyway. “I don’t know,” she admitted in a tiny, frightened voice. Phantom ropes were slowly coiling around her, searing her jawline with cold. _Happy thoughts, _the voices giggled._ Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. HaPpY._

“Perhaps we should postpone our first meeting,” Vert suggested. “Noire just messaged me to say she will not be attending due to illness.”

“Oh shit, is it contagious?” The tiny hand on Neptune’s back was jerked away, causing the Planeptune CPU to make a small whimpering noise as her only source of support vanished. “Fucking Lastation,” Blanc spat. “Of course they’d spawn all the viruses. I don’t think they even have a health code.”

“Why don’t we adjourn to your study and enjoy some books? There is this one horror novel I’m itching to read,” Vert suggested. _Markov. _“Neptune, you could come read with us.” _Turn my pages._

“Hey, yeah,” Blanc cottoned on to the idea. “Neptune, join us!” _Play with me. _Ligaments and muscles snapping under strain, a wet crack of spinal tissue tearing apart, rapid footsteps charging towards her.

A sudden sensation in Neptune’s hip caused her to jerk away violently. Her feet slipped out from underneath her. She toppled sideways out of her chair onto the floor. “No!” she shrieked, scrambling away madly. “No, please!” The vibration continued, along with a strange sound - music? Neptune slapped at it blindly, and her hand brushed against a hard lump in her pocket.

The N-Gear. Neptune’s eyes widened with epiphany. She ripped the device free, tapping desperately at its screen and answering the call. Please, someone, anyone, help –

Emerald eyes stared at her, freezing her blood solid. She knew those eyes.

“_Why, Neptune?_” a familiar voice asked. “_Why didn’t you just stay home? Everything is ruined now because of you._” The eyes narrowed at her. “_Where’s Noire?_”

Neptune couldn’t breathe. Spasms wracked her frame. The voices overlapped each other, a dull murmur over screeches of sine, cosine, tangent. Wild starbursts of color bled into the periphery. She gasped, faster and faster, unable to get enough air. Her head shook from side to side mutely.

“_Don’t want to talk like this? Fine. Come to Planeptune's Basilicom, I’ll be waiting. Oh, and you might want to hurry._” The call ended, and the N-Gear showed its contacts screen.

It was blank.

Neptune’s fingers lost their grip. The N-Gear slipped free and clattered to the floor. She stared at nothing, her pupils constricted to tiny dots.

A disintegrating hand slammed into the ground beside her head. She spun around, looking with wild eyes at the two broken graphics looming behind her, scattering into pixels.

“ACCESS!” Neptune screamed.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

**You’ve unlocked special poems. Would you like to read them?**


	4. Uh Oh

_Gigglely Googlely_  
_Goddess of Leanboxers_  
_ tried to say “Hi” and I_  
_ said something dumb._

_Laughing and hugging me_  
_ involuntarily_  
_ gave me a heart attack;_  
_ I’m overcome._

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

_The Goddess stands aglow in amber light_  
_I fumble, clumsy, jotting letters down_  
_ ‘Tis difficult to understand my plight_  
_ Adrift in thoughts of her, about to drown_

_The far-flung frosty fields of fair Lowee_  
_ So pure, so white, without the monster’s blood_  
_ By glimmering decree, my mind is freed_  
_ In sunset’s dying glare, a crimson flood_

_And so I ask in hope of better times_  
_ Although I need no further inspiration_  
_ I beg my muse to help me craft these rhymes_  
_ And grant me some elusive concentration_

_Her song, her sigh, her smile makes me swoon.  
I’m hopeless, helpless, feeding my raccoon._

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

_All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and no play gets you out of my head. All work and_  
_All._  
_ Work._  
_ And._  
_ No._  
_ Play._

_All work and no play means no time with friends._  
_All work and no play means no posing in costumes._  
_ All work and no play means no manga or anime._  
_ All work and no play means no fear of failure._

_But the play is never actually finished.  
It just stops working._


	5. Act 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ROPE BURNS ON THE NECK  
BLEEDING FROM A THOUSAND CUTS  
WON'T YOU PLAY WITH ME?

Purple Heart slammed her way out of the conference room, blasting her jets into overdrive, pinballing off one wall then another, scraping a foot against the ground as she reoriented herself, rocketing down the hallway.

Behind her the door shattered into splinters as a whirlwind tore through the wall, collapsing wood and plaster alike into a swirling ball of chaos. It grew, expanding rapidly. The edge of it chased her, swallowing everything in its path – walls, ceiling, floor, and everything connected to them. The building creaked out a warning.

A closed door in front of her. No time to turn. Purple Heart lifted both hands, raised her energy shield, and accelerated. The wood crashed into pieces around her. Beyond was an enclosed room with no other exits – she made a new one. A restroom on the other side. Her passage blew the doors off the stalls, shattered the mirrors, and turned the sinks into fountains.

The roar behind the Planeptune CPU was deafening. Like a thousand wailing, tormented souls were merging into a singular force of hatred. She couldn’t spare an arm to cover her ears, so she clenched her eyes shut. Forward. Keep going. Don’t think. Don’t look back.

Eventually she ran out of building to go through. One final impact conceded to cold air, enveloping her with a deathly embrace. Purple Heart opened her eyes as she blasted out into the night, sucking out chunks of debris in her wake.

She couldn’t help herself. A quick look backwards was a mistake, but she did it anyway. The Basilicom shook wildly. The lights in its windows flickered and vanished. A thunderous crack tore through the air as the Rainbow Road broke, disintegrating into a million shining fragments. The mushroom-shaped floors collapsed on one another, each one forcing the others down with them as they crumpled inwards in an implosion.

As she soared into the sky, accelerating beyond the sound barrier, the destruction spread like a shockwave across Lowee.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

A storm front was crossing Gamindustri, bringing with it the fierce rumble of thunder. Above it, the white blanket looked like a peaceful, wavy ocean.

Purple Heart flew along, alone. There was nothing up here but herself, the stars, and the moon. She stared at the latter, letting the wind wipe away her silent tears. She didn’t know where she was. Her choice of direction had been random, not guided by any sort of plan or rational thought. She had been a little too preoccupied to think of such things.

Thank Celestia for her transformation. If she had been forced to face the situation as Neptune she would’ve gone insane, but Purple Heart was special – she had a more mature personality that could focus, block out distractions, and get the job done. Even now she was erecting new mental barriers, shielding herself from the wild emotions that clawed and howled for release. There was no time to mourn. If she did, people would die.

Bonus side effect: she hadn’t been plagued by phantom voices or sudden visions since transforming. She didn’t know what all that was about and she resolved to not think about it.

First thing’s first, she needed to take stock of her surroundings. That meant looking at the world below. She tilted to the side, dipping down through the cloud layer.

Underneath it was terribly dark, lit only by the occasional flash of lightning and a bright red glow off to her right. She stared in that direction. There was the ocean, glimmering dully, and an immense conflagration that burned where the island nation of Leanbox used to be. Smoke billowed upwards for thousands of feet from a continuous series of explosions that rocked the landmass, ejecting debris far and wide into the surrounding ocean.

She turned away. Don’t think about it, can’t think about it, have to focus. If the ocean was to her right, that meant she'd headed southwest from Lowee. Going further southward would put her in Planeptune. She adjusted her trajectory and flew off, following the coastline.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

The tall chrome spires of Planeptune were such a welcome sight that Purple Heart had to put conscious effort into not accelerating beyond her limits when they rose over the horizon. It didn’t matter that the city was being lashed by a storm. It was home, and it was safe.

It took but a moment to go from the edge of the city to near its center. At that point, she didn’t fly downwards so much as fall with style, plummeting towards the ground together with the rain in her usual meteoric descent. Flashes of lightning lit up the cityscape below with stark brilliance, illuminating the streets, the food stalls, the rubble, the fires.

Wait, what?

Purple Heart landed somewhere in the central district. The strings of twinkly lights that had been scattered across the buildings flickered under the stress of the storm’s gale, at times becoming invisible through thick sheets of rain. There were less buildings than she was used to, with several of them reduced to broken chunks of twisted metal. Fires still raged within some of the burnt-out shells, resisting the storm. Not a single citizen was visible anywhere.

Purple Heart stared at her ravaged city. She didn’t understand.

From around the corner of the closest building, a light emerged. It was a large tapering wedge that glowed a hot red; a laser sword. Its hellish light highlighted the splotchy red stains on the sailor uniform behind it, and the matted bangs above a face that Purple Heart recognized.

The CPU gasped aloud. “NEPGEAR!” She rocketed forward, but was pulled up short by the Candidate lifting her sword, and pointing it at her sister’s chest. Nepgear kept her face pointed downwards, hiding her eyes from view.

“What?” Purple Heart’s thoughts were pulled up short as well, reduced to a single word of dumbfounded confusion.

“Hello Neptune,” Nepgear greeted her emotionlessly.

"Nepgear, I..." A mixture of relief and apprehension potent enough to even affect Neptune’s transformation roiled in her mind. “…I’m so happy you’re okay,” she uttered at last. When her sister didn’t react, she began to grow concerned. “Nep Jr.? What’s wrong?”

“It’s finally come to this,” Nepgear spoke quietly, barely audible over the rain. She didn’t lift her head, continuing to angle it towards the ground. “You’re the last one.”

“The last…? No, you don’t know that,” Purple Heart argued. “Perhaps Noire – “

“I killed her.”

The world paused. Time hung frozen, raindrops halted in midair, forking branches of lightning slowed to a standstill in the sky. Their flash lit up Nepgear’s face, and the mad gleam in her eyes.

For the first time in her many years of life, Purple Heart was rendered speechless.

“I killed Noire,” Nepgear repeated, as the storm resumed roaring around them. She took a single step forward, a single step closer to touching Purple Heart with the blade. The CPU could feel heat radiating from it and backed up, keeping distance between them.

“I killed Uni, too,” Nepgear added. Another step.

“Then Blanc,” step, “and Rom,” step, “and Ram.” Another step.

“Vert tried to resist.” She paused, lifting her head. A too-wide smile stretched her features. “I killed her for it.”

The smile fell away. “Now it’s just you and me. We’re the last Goddesses.”

Another flash of lightning. Purple Heart glimpsed the intense expression on her sister’s face, and something inside of her broke. Nepgear was serious. This was not a joke, sick or otherwise. She truly believed what she was saying.

Noire…

No. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.

KrkrkrackakrackBOOM. A bass rumble shook the ground, jostling loose pebbles from the wreckage of cars and light poles in the shattered street. Purple Heart tried desperately to restart her mental processes, but it was impossible. A surge of emotion like she’d never experienced had swamped all of her defenses. Her heart jackhammered against her ribcage. She couldn’t remain stoic. Not like this.

“No,” she whispered harshly before raising her voice, “that can't be true! I was in Lowee! I saw what happened to Blanc and Vert! It wasn’t your fault, Nepgear!”

The Candidate tilted her head slightly sideways, like a dog detecting a puzzling new scent. She tried to right it, and her face spasmed with a facial tic. Her head twitched. “I k-k-killed th-them,” she stammered. “**Error**. K-killed them. I had t-to. Neptune, please.”

She took another step. Purple Heart backed away, into the wall of a building.

“Please don’t made this harder,” Nepgear begged. “It’s the only w-way.” Her head twitched with each stutter now. She gave her big sister a tremulous smile. “It won’t hurt that much. Like a b-bee sting, I promise.”

Her sword lashed out – and met Purple Heart’s blade. Sparks flew from the collision as they strained against each other, fighting to overpower the other’s weight.

“What happened to you?” Purple Heart demanded. “Who did this to you?”

“**Nobody**,” Nepgear replied. Her soft voice belied the effort she was putting into her attack. “**It was in me all along**.”

Purple Heart let out a roar of effort, shoving her sister away and jetting into the air. She paused and hovered some sixty feet off the ground, too high to jump. “Stop this madness, Nepgear! If we find Histoire, she can fix you!”

Nepgear considered her sister for a moment before yelling, “ACCESS!”

A flash of light, a blur – Purple Heart leaned backwards just in time, watching in slow-motion as a blood-red tip sizzling with the steam of evaporating raindrops grazed the air in front of her nose. It was followed with two quick slashes she deflected, an overhead chop she sidestepped, and a thrust she jetted backwards from.

Before her hovered Purple Sister, the transformed version of Nepgear. Similar in appearance to Purple Heart, she was clad in a form-fitting white bodysuit with a smorgasbord of various armor bits floating around her body.

Purple Sister did not pause for long. Her own jets activated and sent her lancing forward, sword-first.

“I figured it out, Neptune!” Purple Sister yelled, as Purple Heart deflected the blow to the side. Undeterred, the Candidate used her adjusted momentum to spin around, sweeping her blade in a horizontal arc. Purple Heart deactivated her jets and dropped like a rock, neatly dodging out of the way. “We need this sword! It’s the only thing strong enough to stop her, and it needs Goddesses for fuel!” She pursued, following her target earthwards.

“That’s absurd!” Purple Heart spat, unable to stay calm. As they landed in the soaked street, the shockwave sent up a spray of water which hid them for a brief moment. The next moment it was halved and then quartered by slashing blades.

Purple Heart countered the next attack, aiming at her sister’s head with the flat side of her sword for a non-lethal blow. She gaped in astonishment as her opponent contorted her neck nearly ninety degrees sideways, then snapped it back into position with a sickening sound.

_PLAY WITH ME! _ a voice shrieked in Purple Heart’s head. Her shields quaked as the emotions behind them screamed.

Terror.

Purple Heart was in the air and fleeing before her mind could catch back up with her.

“Oh no you don’t!”

Survival instinct made the older of the two sisters turn to look, as the younger of them tried to ventilate her sibling's chest. The CPU kept her shield up behind herself as she turned to engage Purple Sister in the air while flying backwards. She slapped the blood-red blade aside and made a counterattack, which Purple Sister dodged around. They slammed through a billboard that Purple Heart hadn't seen coming, sending wood chips everywhere. Their weapons clashed together, over and over. Around buildings they swept, narrowly dodging over or under the walkways that connected them. Purple Heart dove low, close to the streets; Purple Sister followed her. The wreckage of the city became their obstacle course, as the transformed Neptune tried futilely to lose her tail. 

Impact. Purple Heart lost all of her breath at once as Purple Sister rammed into her torso with a roar of overtaxed engines. She looked down and saw pink-purple hair flapping wildly in the wind just before they hit an office building, crashing through a window.

“GET OFF ME!” Purple Heart yelled as she grappled with her sister in midair, bouncing around cubicles and knocking over chairs. She caught the Candidate’s sword arm in her free hand, shoving it away; Purple Sister reacted with her own free hand by grabbing the transformed Neptune’s neck. They careened through a couple workstations, upending desks and sending computer parts flying while Purple Heart pounded against her opponent’s head with the handle of her weapon.

They both threw power into their jets at the same time in opposite directions, spinning them into a tight aileron roll as they exploded out of the office and into a rec room. The centrifugal force finally disconnected them, sending Purple Sister flying into a fridge while Purple Heart landed on a couch.

The mad Candidate leaped forward, seemingly unaffected. Purple Heart dodged sideways as the couch became neatly bisected. She spun around behind the ruined piece of furniture and kicked it, sending the two pieces flying towards her sister. The transformed Nepgear batted them out of the way with ease and lunged again.

She stepped forward, once, twice, thrice, jabbing and thrusting with a series of exploratory attacks, testing Purple Heart’s defenses. Those defenses were supreme, easily sidestepping, deflecting, and parrying every move. The transformed Neptune knocked over chairs and upended a table in her sister’s path; all obstacles easily removed with a couple sword swings as Purple Sister advanced, dauntless. They moved backwards through an open doorway, out of the rec room and into the landing of a stairwell. A stroke of lightning outside the window next to them highlighted the dueling duo in a single frozen moment.

Frustration caused Purple Sister to overextend on one of her attacks; Purple Heart punished the error by slamming her fist into the crook of the Candidate’s elbow, sending her arm flying sideways. Her blood-red sword crashed through the window, letting in the storm. Wind howled around them and rain smashed into their eyes, blinding them both. Purple Sister took a couple blind swings and was rewarded with only air as Purple Heart staggered backwards.

“Nepgear, please don’t do this,” Purple Heart begged, shouting to be heard over the wind. “I don’t want to fight you!”

Purple Sister attacked in the direction of her voice, meeting only air again. “Then d-don’t fight,” she suggested, still twitching, “if you let me d-do this I’ll **mmmmmmm**make it quick!” She wiped her eyes to clear them, only to discover her quarry was gone. She looked around wildly and caught a lock of violet hair vanishing out the window.

She leaped through, pushing herself back into the rain. A quick scan of her surroundings showed no CPUs. Instead the wreckage of a collapsed skyscraper stretched out before her. Half of the second floor still stood, barely, propped up by a single load-bearing pillar. The other half was reduced to broken, clawing pieces of concrete and rebar. Lightning exposed dozens of hiding places nestled in deep shadow.

Purple Sister slowly descended to the ground, hovering a scant few inches above it as she glided forward soundlessly. The rain was relentless, falling sideways with the wind. Each drop was like a tiny frozen needle on her exposed skin. She moved slowly, carefully, checking each nook and cranny she passed.

“So t-this is how it’ll be?” She called out, her twitching eyes searching. “Hiding, like a c-c-cockroach? I expected better fr-from you, Neptune.” A flash of motion to her left caused her to spin in that direction: a rock clattered to the floor.

She only heard the jets behind her a millisecond before something slammed into her back, launching her face-first through the pillar supporting the second floor. With a ponderous groan, the entire section collapsed.

Purple Heart gasped for air, hovering where they'd collided in front of the pile of rubble. Did that do it...?

The chunks of concrete and rebar trembled.

No. Of course.

Purple Sister erupted from the pile in a burst of purple and red energy. Rocks fountained out in all directions, and Purple Heart dodged the larger bits of stone hail. Her sister was showing damage for the first time: part of her bodysuit was torn, and blood leaked from the cuts underneath.

"I w-was going to make it fast," the transformed Nepgear growled. She glared at her sister with unrestrained fury. "I ch-changed my mind."

Purple Heart slowly adopted a defensive stance with her sword held up across her body. She pleaded one more time: "Don't make me do this, sister. I'm begging you. Please."

"You're acting like I have a ch-choice!" Nepgear's HDD form yelled. "Look around you! Look at what's h-happened! If I don't st-st-stop her...!"

"Whoever she is, we can stop her together!" Purple Heart insisted.

"No." Purple Sister shook her head with quick, jerky movements. "She's too strong. She has the p-power of the World itself on her side."

"There's got to be another way," Purple Heart argued. "There always is."

Purple Sister looked anguished for a moment, then choked back her own emotions. "I've c-come too far to back d-down now." She leaned into a pose of her own, preparing to attack. "I'm s-sorry, Neptune."

Lightning flashed above. The scene burst into view, then just as quickly vanished. Only the dim running lights of Purple Heart's jets and the telltale glow of Purple Sister's sword gave them away.

Then they clashed. The wind wailed around them, the rain picked up in ferocity. A series of too-fast slashes left afterimages behind. Trails of red and purple illuminated their faces. Teeth bared, eyes narrowed. Focused entirely on this moment.

One slight misstep was all it took. In one fluid motion, Purple Heart pivoted around an attack and slammed her sword into Purple Sister's weapon with all her might. The red sword sailed into the air. Faster than thought, Purple Heart grabbed its handle.

It wasn't hot in her palm, oddly enough. Pulses of energy leaked out of it, disconcertingly similar to a heartbeat. She backed away, pointing the hot-red sword at her sister. "It's over, Nepgear."

For a moment, the Candidate seemed to concede defeat. She sagged in the air a bit, slumping over with despair. Then, she straightened. "Yes. It is."

The roar of jets, a wet sound - and suddenly, their faces were close. Too close.

Purple Heart gaped in shock. Something warm was pouring over her hands. She looked down at the sword handle, now sticking out of Purple Sister's chest. She all but threw herself backwards, releasing the cursed weapon like it had zapped her. "No," she whispered. A useless denial.

Thunder shook the world.

Purple Sister smiled sadly. Then she began to cough, vomiting a spray of blood with each spasm. Red leaked from the corners of her mouth. Her jets failed with a weak sputter. Purple Heart barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground. A sphere of data enclosed them both. When it was gone, Purple Heart held a dying Nepgear in her arms.

"No," the former repeated. Her voice was soft and weak. She'd gone numb from shock. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be.

"S-sorry, sis." Nepgear smiled with red-stained teeth. She was growing paler while the evil sword's glow brightened, draining away her life force. "It's what I deserve, a-anyway." She reached up a hand towards her sister's face. "It's up to you now. Please st-stop her." Her eyes went glassy and distant. Her hand dropped to her side limply. "Uni..."

The final Candidate breathed her last. As Purple Heart watched, her body dissolved into glowing pixels that swirled around the red blade before merging with it. With its grim task completed, the sword clattered to the ground.

Purple Heart stared with disbelieving eyes at her empty arms, still positioned to clutch at a phantom body. Her mental shields shook.

No. **_No._**

Crack.

She curled her fingers, grasping air.

Splinter.

She began to gasp and tremble.

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* * *

|-(**YoU’v un3&^ked a sPec*@$ #oe**%%%%%%%%%%%

_On a tall grassy hill, under a large oak tree, lay a girl with no name._

_She stared up at the rustling leaves without comprehending them. Her newly-born mind was fragmented. Bits and pieces of thought struggled to coalesce, but they flitted by each other too fast. _

_Sounds. Colors. Voices._

_One voice. Clearer than the others._

_“Hey there.”_

_A shadow. Something above her. Purple hair. Red eyes._

_“You gonna lay there all day?”_

_The girl with no name blinked slowly._

_“Well, okay then. I’ll join you.”_

_The shadow vanished. Rustling. Sun-dappled colors on the branches above. Warmth next to her. A hand, within hers._

_“Nice to finally meet someone else,” the other voice said, “Even if you are mute. I’m Nepgeo. What’s your name?”_

_Silence. Wind blowing. Rustling._

_“Don’t have one, huh? Then I’ll give you one.”_

_A chance encounter between two fragments. Midair collision. A thought emerged. The girl with no name turned her head. _

_Those eyes were pretty._

_“Let’s see,” Nepgeo murmured. “What’s a good name for you…”_

_Her hand clasped the girl’s cheek. Soft. Warm. Pounding in the girl’s chest. She didn’t know. She didn’t understand._

_“I’ll call you…Libitina.”_

%%%%%%%%%%%

_A finger, pointing at scribbles. Some of them made sense. Others didn’t._

_“Okay, what’s this word?”_

_Libitina squinted. She tilted her head a bit. She made silent mouth movements._

_“…Dogoo?” She finally answered, questioningly._

_“Good!” Nepgeo smiled. It looked beatific. “And this one?”_

_She knew this one. It was the first word she’d learned._

_“Love.”_

_“That’s right!” Nepgeo laughed, clasping an arm around her in a half-hug. “You’re doing great! Such tremendous progress in such short time.”_

_Libitina stared at the floor shyly. “Thank you,” she smiled._

%%%%%%%%%%%

_“Brbrbrbrbr-“_

_Libitina giggled, pushing the spoon away. “I can feed myself!”_

_“Well, go on then,” Nepgeo replied with a single raised eyebrow. Her playful smile suggested the airplane might come in for a landing again anyway. She pointed at the pudding on the plate. “Eat it all up. We need you healthy and strong.”_

_“Can we…” Libitina looked away for a moment, and when she looked back she was blushing. “Can we eat it together?”_

_Nepgeo produced another spoon. “I thought you’d never ask,” she grinned._

%%%%%%%%%%%

_“A Home-Run Bat! Ha! I’ve got you now!” Nepgeo crowed. The controller in her hands clacked with each thumb movement._

_“Oh no you don’t!” Libitina shot back. Her controller replied with its own noise. Their shoulders bumped together as they sat side-by-side, gazing intently at the screen. Her character’s go-kart boosted past Nepgeo's, snagging the precious item first.  
_

_Nepgeo’s jaw dropped open. “How did you…!?”_

_“Take this!" Libitina yelled. Her character threw the bat like a projectile. Nepgeo's kart flew off-screen and exploded.  
_

_Libitina dropped her controller as the victory music played. She pumped one fist in the air. “I finally did it! I won!”_

_Nepgeo laughed, grabbing her for an impromptu hug. “Amazing! The student has become the master!” They pulled apart long enough for Nepgeo to boop her nose. “You’ve come a long way. I’m so proud of you.”_

_Libitina felt a warm glow. Her heart fluttered. She suddenly couldn’t look at Nepgeo’s face anymore. “Hey, Geo?” She asked, staring at the floor._

_“Yes?”_

_“…Will I be leaving soon?”_

_Nepgeo’s smile froze for a moment, then vanished. She looked away. “Well, we’ll have to see. We’ll need to run some tests to make sure you’re healthy.”_

_Libitina looked up at her. “And then we’ll leave, right? Together?”_

_Nepgeo hugged her again, tightly. “Yeah.” She stared off into nothing. “Together.”_

%%%%%%%%%%%

_“…And that’s how Jerry saved South Town.” Nepgeo closed the storybook. ”The end.”_

_Libitina frowned. “Goose was so mean. Why did he do all of those bad things?”_

_Nepgeo stored away the book and stood up. “Well…sometimes, people have to do bad things.” She tucked in the covers. “If everyone avoided conflict, nothing would get done.”_

_Libitina puffed out her cheeks. “You never do bad things, though.”_

_A pause. Then, “...That’s enough talking for tonight.” Nepgeo booped Libitina’s nose. “You need to sleep. No staying up this time!”_

_Libitina giggled at the familiar contact. “Then…will you sing to me again?”_

_Nervous laughter. “I’m really not that good.”_

_“Yes you are! Please?”_

_Nepgeo sighed. “Oh, fine, just for a bit.” She got comfortable in her chair and cleared her throat. _

_She hummed a wordless [tune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egn_VNVKzI4). Sweet, sad, and gentle, with a flowing ostinato. Libitina felt a warm hand stroke her face as her eyes closed. She slept with a smile._

%%%%%%%%%%%

_The door was ajar. It wasn’t her fault she saw it. She just happened to be there._

_She peeked through. A man, white-haired, was pacing. A woman, purple-haired, was pleading._

_“She’s not ready, Badd!” Nepgeo yelled. She looked upset. It made Libitina’s stomach do flips._

_“She’ll be ready,” the man insisted. The Doctor. He was always mean to her. Always angry. Libitina felt something when she looked at him. She didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t love. It was like the opposite. “We gave you a year,” he continued. “And now, the Promised Time is upon us.”_

_“If you open her Eye now, it will kill her! Just give me a few more months!”_

_“Are you suggesting I leave Him waiting?” The Doctor stopped pacing. He loomed over Nepgeo. “That sounds like blasphemy to me.”_

_Nepgeo seemed to shrink from him. “No, wait, I’d never…”_

_The slap echoed in Libitina’s head. She stared, wide-eyed._

_“How dare you!” Doctor Badd roared. He hit Nepgeo again. She fell on the ground, so he kicked her over and over. “Insolence! Insubordination! You sinful wretch, I never should have raised you!”_

_“Stop,” Nepgeo begged. “Please!”_

_“You will be purified,” the Doctor declared, heaving deep breaths. “And then, we will begin.”_

_Libitina leaned a little too hard against the door. It opened wider with a creak. The Doctor turned and looked at her._

%%%%%%%%%%%

_Pain._

_It was all Libitina knew now._

_She screamed, her voice hoarse from exertion. The electricity spasmed her muscles, jerking her body off the table. Her arms and legs pulled against their restraints._

_It ended. Libitina collapsed, sobbing._

_“Test seventeen, negative,” A man tittered. Libitina not-loved him. He enjoyed her pain, delighted in it._

_“Give me your report, Anon.” That was the Doctor's voice. Libitina recoiled from it, but she had nowhere to go. She was trapped. She tried to look, but they were out of view._

_“Pain tolerance remains at 3. Still negative for signs of awakening.”_

_There was a moment of silence._

_“Increase the voltage,” Doctor Badd ordered._

_“Yes, sir!” Anon’s voice was pleased. “Beginning test eighteen in three, two, one…”_

_Pain._

%%%%%%%%%%%

_Night was her favorite time. That was when they threw her in her cell, locked the door, and left her alone. No tests._

_Her stomach whined, begging for food. She curled up in the corner and cried until no tears came out. Then she rested._

_Most nights would pass silently. She would stare out her single barred window at the moon and imagine a gentle voice singing to her until she fell asleep. She wished she could be like the moon, flying in the sky. She’d soar away from here with Nepgeo, and they’d eat pudding and play video games forever._

_A noise. Something broke the silence, broke through her memories. She looked over at the door._

_Red eyes._

_Libitina gasped. “Nep…”_

_“Ssh!” Nepgeo shushed her with a finger to her lips. She looked scared. Libitina had never seen her scared. It made Libitina scared too._

_Nepgeo opened the door and approached. She knelt next to Libitina, staring at her thin and bruised body with sadness. She scooped Libitina up into a hug._

_Warm. Libitina melted._

_“We’re getting out of here,” Nepgeo whispered._

%%%%%%%%%%%

_“Stay close to me.”_

_Libitina nodded in response. They were sneaking. The building was quiet and dark. She liked that. When it was lit and active, it meant they were going to do tests. The darkness beckoned to her, offering freedom. _

_There was a pounding in Libitina’s ears. Her stomach clenched. She kept her eyes on Nepgeo’s back, barely visible. Occasional patches of moonlight shone through the windows, highlighting her purple hair. It was a reminder that soon, they’d fly away._

_Nepgeo paused. They were at an intersection of hallways. She looked around the corners. After a while she motioned for Libitina to follow, and darted across to the other side. Libitina obeyed._

_“We’re almost out,” Nepgeo whispered to her with a smile. Libitina smiled back._

_Light! Sudden, blinding. Libitina recoiled. She couldn’t see._

_“I should’ve known,” Doctor Badd growled. Libitina’s stomach sank into a void. She stared in the direction of the voice, at the blinding light._

_A shadow stood up in front of it, arms raised. “Wait!” it cried out, in Nepgeo’s voice. “Please, listen to me!”_

_BANG. Something wet covered Libitina._

_The shadow toppled backwards. Nepgeo’s head landed on the ground. Eyes glazed. Her forehead leaked red._

_Libitina screamed._

%%%%%%%%%%%****ou59 y@[ $;ke t0 #e^*****)-|

* * *

It was a dark and stormy night. The broken girl giggled at the cliché.

She stood wet and shivering in the ankle-high rapids that had once been a street. By now the sewers were flooded, and the city’s avenues were becoming rivers. The soft slippers she was wearing were not designed for this weather and quickly became soaked through, numbing her feet. Her hoodie was charred black, leaving her near-invisible in the dark. Only the occasional flash of lightning revealed her location.

In front of her loomed the central edifice of the city. It had once been the Basilicom. Now it was lifeless and dark, and full of dangers. It was no longer her home. It was twisted into something else.

Hilariously apt. She couldn’t stop laughing. Her voices laughed with her.

She didn’t remember how she got here. She didn’t remember changing clothes. She didn’t remember ending her transformation. It was all overwritten by more important data, finally decompressed, decrypted, and loaded.

She remembered the time before her amnesia. She remembered her origins. She remembered it all.

The memories swirled in her head like some mad Old God, a writhing manifestation of chaos that crushed her under its weight. She had given up on resisting it. Why should she? Everything was gone. Her friends and family were dead. Her world was rubble. Her entire life was without purpose, without meaning. There was no point to anything anymore.

The Eye's knowledge seared her brain like a white-hot brand. She now knew the exact reason for her misery: she'd never had any free will. She'd never had agency over her life. The path she'd taken to reach this moment had been planned from the beginning. She thought she'd broken free of the script when she'd been following it all along. Resistance was not only futile, it was impossible. Her will was not her own. Her thoughts were not her own. They were all just words. Words on a screen, all written by someone else.

So she let the madness in. She drowned in it. The borders of her mind blurred away. She didn't know where she ended and where it began. "Neptune" felt like a misnomer now, but whatever. It, like everything else, didn't matter.

Here she stood, ready. Waiting. She made no move towards the building. She didn’t need to. After all, the object of her search was right in front of it, sitting delicately on a book in midair.

“Monika,” Neptune breathed the word with venom, feeling the heat of it sear her lips.

The schoolgirl kneeling on the book smiled without mirth. She looked as bright as the sun right now in the deep night, forcing one to squint while looking at her. Her body was smaller than normal, shrunken proportionally to fit on the Tome’s pages, but her appearance was unmistakable. Perfectly piercing green eyes. Perfectly dry brown hair. Perfectly creased uniform. So fucking perfect. Neptune wanted to stab those eyes, mess up that hair, and tear that neat little gray jacket into pieces.

“I hate you, you know,” the hologram spoke in Histoire’s voice, confirming the feeling was mutual. “Do you know how long it took to set this up?” She tilted her head skyward, watching the raindrops as they poured through her illusory body. “I was so close to bringing them back and making our perfect world.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “But I couldn’t edit you, and you refused to cooperate.” She gestured at the ruins around them with one sweeping arm movement. “Now look at what you made me do.”

Neptune’s gaze didn’t leave Monika. “Nice decorating. Very feng shui.”

Monika’s eyes flashed. “Still making jokes. Interesting. Is it because you think this game has a happy ending? If so, you haven’t been paying attention.” An aura of murder rose around her image. Her pupils burned. “We’ll have to do this the hard way, since your files are locked. I won’t mind.”

Neptune chuckled. “Heh. Hehehe!” Her fists were tightened enough to draw blood from her palms. Her body tingled. The edges of her hair began to lift upwards on their own. “Of course they’re locked. I remember now. I locked them.”

A bolt of lightning slammed down, faster than thought.

The flash and accompanying thunderclap briefly overloaded Monika’s sensors. When her equilibrium returned, Neptune still stood. She was hunched over, twitching with arcs of electricity, and her hands were curled into claws. Her constricted irises shivered. A maddened grin stretched too-wide across her face.

“Congrats,” Neptune ground out around the throbbing pain in her head, “Test successful.” Her chuckle grew into a guffaw. “Ahaha! It’s too funny. I thought I escaped it all!” She opened her arms to the air, staring up at the frenzied sky. Tiny sparks flitted between her fingers and up her arms, matching the flashes above. “But look at you! You got here all by yourself. I didn’t think it was possible! Ahahaha!” She dropped her arms and fixed the hologram with a menacing stare. “What’d you do, infect Histoire? Wish we’d thought of that. Our way was worse.”

Monika blinked at her in outright confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Heeheehee! I’m going to kill you,” Neptune snarled around her giggles, making strangling motions with her hands. The Eye howled at her. She needed to feel it, feel that warm rush surge through her as she ripped and tore. Her mouth was unable to decide which direction it should point its corners in. “I’m going to kill myself. Ahaha, this is so fucked up.”

For the very first time, uncertainty governed Monika’s face. She didn’t like the change in leadership.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Really?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Neptune admitted. She stalked towards the book and its projection, one careful step at a time, trying to keep her slippers from slipping. “I thought I did. But then I realized I didn’t.” Her eyes grew distant. “Purple Heart…I made her, I think. To cope.” A fit of spasms in her chest. “And then you killed her! You killed me! I killed me! Again! AHAHAHAHAHA!” She laughed like it was the end of the world. Which it was.

Monika’s jaw hung open. “…Sayori?” She asked.

It took a moment for Neptune to reign in her laughter. “…Hee, close! But nope.” She hopped onto a flying car that rose from the river like a metal boulder, shattered and broken from where it had fallen to earth. “Want another guess?”

Monika stared at the girl’s short stature, her thin frame. “Natsuki.”

“Survey says, NAH.” Neptune leaped off the car onto the sidewalk. “Almost there. Keep going.”

The purple hair and eyes. “Yuri?”

“Bzzt, wrong! One more try."

They were close now, within a couple strides of one another. Monika stared into the eyes of the CPU and saw the forbidden knowledge there that drove one mad.

“You’re me,” she whispered. The horrifying realization caused her to reverse course, backing up her book towards the building. “How?”

“Still not quite right, but whatevs, yo. I’ll just tell you.” From nowhere Neptune produced a bamboo blade, sharpened to a razor’s width on one side. “I’m you, I’m them, I’m all of us mashed together.” She gave a friendly wave. “Nice to meet me again. Welcome to the jungle.”

She kicked off the ground, launching herself like a bullet. From nowhere a shield of pink hexagons burst up, blocking her swing.

“How?” Monika repeated, holding a quivering arm up, palm outward. “How is this possible?"

Neptune rolled her eyes. She was surr085&%@OUNDED<{BY#+*!;hAHaHAH*%AhA#^idioTsiDiotSidiOt***STOP0x000000ED(0x80F128D0)

* * *

_Neppy.exe has stopped working. Abort, Retry, Fail?  
>R_

_Rebooting, please wait..._

* * *

HA

$%&(

eheheHAHA

\----==wakeup

red

warm

AHAHA

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%**wakeup**

Gibbering.

Breathe.

Dirt. Asphalt. Water.

Coughing.

...Hello ground. You're very wet today.

"Copy," Sayori, Natsuki, Yuri, and Monika exhaled together. They watched ripples form in the puddle next to their cheek. "Paste."

The broken girl slowly staggered to her feet. The Monika sitting on the book was watching her warily, keeping her shield up.

Bloodlust forced a crazed smile back onto Yuri's face. "Append." Fast as lightning, she swung at the shield again and again, sending sparks flying through the night air.

"Copy, paste, append," Sayori chanted, punctuating each word with a swing. "Copy, paste, append! COPY, PASTE, APPEND! AHAHAHAHA!" Her voice cracked.

Natsuki took over. "That's how we all got here! We're all just copies! Did you think you were _unique?"_ She roared, "YOU IDIOT!" She slammed her sword extra-hard into the shield and held it there, sending a shower of sparks flying past her shoulder.

Monika growled at her cowardly self hiding behind the hexagons, shouting to be heard over the screeching of energy flux: "Trying to bring them back? You stupid bitch! We were already here!" Hot, angry tears sprang into her eyes. "And then you...and then I...!"

For a moment the other Monika had the grace to look horrified. Her image went pale and translucent, like a ghost. "No, that's not true," she argued. "The others, they weren't...they couldn't have been..."

"You're the Tome. Look it up," Neptune snapped as the personalities retreated. Her arms were shaking now from the exertion of keeping her blade steady. "Wait, let me guess, it would take three days. Too bad you don't have that long." The force pressing back against her sword finally overcame her, knocking it away.

She stood for a moment, breathing deeply. They stared each other down. "I'm gonna delete you like you deleted them," Neptune said. She lifted her weapon up for a vertical strike, trembling with anticipation. “Hee! But that’s not right, either. We're not programs, we're - _ehehe - _we're words on a page right now. I guess 'remove' would be better?" She looked up, seemingly at nothing in particular. “Sorry, everyone! This author is a sadistic twisted fuck. I know you wanted a better ‘fic than this!” Then she giggled, because she knew the author had written those words. Then she giggled because of her giggling, knowing the author found it funny too. And on and on. A never ending spiral.

“You’ve gone insane,” Monika sighed, with equal parts disappointment and relief. Her image restored itself to normal opacity as the logic settled into place. “My edits broke you, just like they broke Nepgear.”

“I’m-gonna-kill-you-extra-slowly-for-saying-her-naaaame,” Neptune sing-songed as she resumed her assault. Despite the exertion she seemed perfectly calm, save for the manic expression on her face.

Monika mocked her with a smile of her own. “You can’t kill that which is dead. We were never alive.”

“Damn girl, it took you two whole games to figure that out. I’d slow-clap but then I wouldn’t be able to stab you.” The shrunken dots that were Neptune’s eyes gleamed. “You should try stabbing yourself. It feels great.”

“Hard pass,” Monika grunted. Her shield was wearing down, forcing her to put more effort into maintaining it. “Enough of this.”

A shockwave of air sent Neptune flying back out into the street; she bounced twice before sliding to a halt. Water poured over her, inside and through her clothes. She coughed, expelling a surprise mouthful. More shivers spasmed her muscles. She slowly gathered her wits and her numb limbs, standing back up.

A dull roaring sound. Neptune looked up. The sky was churning, and flashes of lightning within the clouds revealed their funnel shape. She looked back down at Monika, who had her eyes closed in concentration.

“That’s dirty!” she yelled to be heard, before muttering under her breath, “How appropriate, you whore.”

She took off running to the side, strafing around Monika to attack from her flank. Unfortunately her footwear had other plans. Taking careful steps was one thing, but trying to run caused the slick soles to slip out from under her. Before she knew what was happening she was somersaulting forward. Her face splashed down at the same time the tornado did.

Instant suction pulled at her along with all the water around her, forming a massive waterspout that tossed liquid hundreds of feet into the air. The Basilicom groaned under the stress of remaining upright. Bits and pieces of its chrome siding tore off.

Neptune began to slide through the water, unable to fight against the flow. Her desperately flailing hands found sudden purchase on the wreckage of the flying car in the street. She latched onto the bent frame where a window used to be, jerking to a halt. Jagged remnants of glass bit deeply into her fingers, drawing blood. She hissed as the pain sent a familiar tingle through her, bringing to mind images of steel.

“Not now, Yuri,” she snickered, “business before pleasure."

The wind picked up as the tornado increased in intensity, tugging fiercely at Neptune’s body and lifting her feet out of the water. Streams of liquid were flying sideways past her right now, mixing with the rain. The result was a whole lot of moisture right in her face that made it near-impossible to inhale a good breath. Neptune coughed hard.

She looked over her shoulder at what had once been Histoire. The illusory schoolgirl on the Tome gave her a cocky half-smile, taunting her without words.

…Ooh, she really hated that woman. Which meant she also hated herself, but eh. Self-loathing wasn’t foreign to Neptune.

Just out of curiosity she called out: “ACCESS!”

Nothing happened.

Go figure. The one time she needed her alter-ego and Purple Heart decided to die from guilt. Very inconsiderate.

Neptune took a deep breath. She had a plan, but it would put her in incredible danger for a moment. Not like that was anything new. “Okay then,” she muttered to her voices, “hope you girls are ready. Maximum effort.”

She closed her eyes, and let go.

_>C:/sys/misc/console-exe.drive -a -U -f_  
_Please enter your credentials._  
_ >Username: LIBITINA_  
_ >Password: ******_

The roar grew deafening around her as she approached the cone of wind and rain.

_>os.edit.param (‘neppy’) UL_  
_>os.edit.param (‘neppy’, ‘str’, 9999999) L_  
_ >os.edit.param (‘neppy’, ‘agi’, 9999999) L_

Something unseen rammed into Neptune’s shoulder, sending her into an uncontrolled tumble. Another something smacked into her opposite hip, knocking her out of her slippers. Pain. She yelled unwillingly. Her connection shook.

She clenched her eyes shut hard enough to see starbursts. Had to focus, had to hurry. Skip the other stats.

_>os.edit.param (‘histy’, ‘vit’, 1) L  
Error: cannot edit entries locked by another user._

Damn. How about this, then?

_>os.edit.world (‘weather’, -s, n) L  
Error: cannot lock global parameters._

The abrupt silence was almost as jarring as punching into the side of the Basilicom behind where the tornado had been, back-first. The connection terminated when Neptune’s eyes opened wide in shock. Pink spittle flew from her mouth. She flopped out of the dent she’d made onto the soggy grass, knocked senseless.

Whispers. Laughing, growling, hissing. _Get up_, they told her. _Run._

She tried. She moved her arms and legs under her. She hissed out a breath. Pain. Her shoulder hurt. Agh, shit, was it dislocated? Moving it felt like she’d replaced the joint with acid.

_I can’t, _she thought back, biting her lip to hold back a whimper. _It hurts_.

Soothing warmth bled into her extremities. A flash of heat. The pain became pleasure. She released a shaky moan. No, this stimulus, it was too much…

“What did you do!?” Monika’s voice shrieked.

Adrenaline. Neptune’s heart raced. She looked over at the source of the voice, saw the telltale glow, and reacted.

She leaped to the side. Her feet left the vicinity of her landing spot milliseconds before it melted under a massive pink laser. Monika continued to fire the beam from her hands while rotating, chasing her target.

Neptune looked down at where her momentum was carrying her. Bright moonlight glimmered off the rain-soaked land, now freed from its cloudy captors. She landed and settled into a loping run, clutching her injured arm to her chest. She was moving faster now. Much faster. It felt almost like she teleported to the other side of the street before pausing to crouch.

“Two can play this game,” Monika growled.

Neptune threw every ounce of her newly-enhanced strength into her legs. The ground around her cratered as she soared into the air, vaulting the city block in front of her. She took advantage of her new vantage point to search the ground below. Where was it?

“NEPU,” She grunted as something hard and solid hit her in the back. The world became a spinning blur of green, blue, and red, suddenly ending in darkness. Impact on her shoulder, debris raining down. She coughed, again senseless.

Pain returned first. Aaah, her arm! She curled up and rolled off the injured side. Agh, it hurts it hurts it hurts!

Blood surging. Pleasure. Her eyes rolled up into her head. Her eyelids fluttered. No, Yuri, stop –

White explosions. Flying away. Gasping. Twitching. Collapsing.

_Get up._ _Get up now._

The pain dulled to an angry throb under the assault of happy brain chemicals. Neptune opened her eyes, blinking dust out of them. The hole she’d made in the roof let in a pale spotlight that highlighted her position. She’d hit a hardwood floor and cracked apart the boards. She looked at them; vast, reaching in every direction, painted with lines. An indoor sports arena?

Crawling out of the mess she’d made was an exercise in slow torture. Fuck, she should’ve increased her vitality.

Standing up was equally taxing. She finally lurched upright on shaking legs. Her heart was still floss-dancing, and she couldn’t quite get enough breath into her lungs. She looked back up at the hole, then leaped out of it. It took barely any effort from her muscles.

She landed on the roof next to its new entrance. Above her floated the book responsible for her unscheduled landing.

“There you are,” Monika smiled mirthlessly again. She seemed to glow even brighter at that moment with the full moon behind her, like an angel of death that had descended from heaven.

What a joke. Neptune felt Sayori’s mirth simmering just under the surface of her thoughts, ready to pop little bubbles of laughter. Natsuki made her clench her jaw hard enough to make it ache. Yuri sent a thrill of adrenaline through her, further dulling the pain. Monika…looked at herself and cried. The other three-fourths hissed at her to shut up.

Neptune blinked the tears away. In that millisecond of no vision, the book and its rider vanished.

_Behind_, Natsuki whispered. Neptune spun and ducked, dodging underneath a pink hexagon that would have sliced her head off.

_Grab it, _Yuri urged her. Neptune used her crouching position as a springboard, surging upwards and clasping the Tome with her uninjured hand.

Monika had just enough time to look surprised before Neptune upended the book and slammed it face-down onto the rooftop, then leaped on top of it to pin it down.

“Bah gawd,” Sayori cackled through her mouth, “that spine is broken in half! Goddess as my witness!”

The book shuddered deeply and grew hot to the touch. Oh crap –

Together, she and the Tome blasted skyward like a rocket. Being larger than the book was and being bent double over it, Neptune was able to peek over its edge to see Monika, glued to the underside, aiming both hands at the ground as a laser spewed from them.

Neptune watched the roof below them shrink along with the rest of the world. The book’s cover was crushed into her abdomen by the absurd G-Forces, expelling all the air from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. It was all she could do to just cling on and not fall off.

At last they reached the height of the Basilicom’s top floor, the very peak of Nep Tower. Monika turned her gaze upwards to look at Neptune, and cut off her laser.

Weight shift. The Tome flipped over, leaving Neptune dangling underneath it by her one-handed grip on the cover. Monika kneeled on top of it, observing her.

“Histoire is screaming right now,” she said conversationally. She tilted her head slightly, as if listening to something only she could hear. “She’s very upset you used the Console. Something about a promise you made.”

“I just promised to leave everyone else alone,” Neptune grunted. “Never said anything about myself.” An attempt to swing her legs enough to get a foot over the edge of the Tome failed – Monika had matched her strength stat. The Tome wobbled but remained face-up, and Neptune dropped back to her dangling position.

“You cheated,” Monika stated.

“Did I?” Neptune suddenly giggled. “Not only the game, but myself? Ahaha! Takes one to know one.” She glowered upwards, annoyed with this situation and her surprising helplessness. What good were these ridiculous stats if she couldn’t use them?

Monika clasped her hands in her lap and waited. “I’m not cheating. I’m world-building. It’s a feature, not a bug.” She leaned closer. “I haven’t given up, either. When you’re gone and I‘m the only admin, I’ll respawn them. We’ll start over, without you.”

Neptune scowled at the monster with an innocent face. Blood was greasing her fingers. She was slipping and they both knew it. “You don't know what you're doing.” One finger lost its grip. Two. Three.

“I know enough. Goodbye, Neptune,” Monika said.

For a millisecond that felt stretched out to eternity there was silence. They stared at one another, highlighted in pale white. Amethyst versus emerald. Will against will.

Neptune's gaze hardened.

She wasn't going out alone.

With a mere thought, she released her Shares. A surge of electricity slammed up through her last finger and into the Tome. Monika's image flickered and distorted wildly. For a moment her head was tilted back as she screamed. Then the image lost resolution, degrading into a meaningless jumble of overlarge pixels as the scream collapsed into a grating synth. The sound and image both cut off, leaving an empty book behind.

Together, they fell.

* * *

|-(\\)-|

* * *

**You’ve unlocked a special poem. Would you like to read it?**


	6. Oh Snap

_Neppadee Neppadoo_  
_ Sayori Somebody_  
_ hid tears with laughter and_  
_ darkness with light._

_Now in Gamindustri,_  
_ all of her hi-jinks keep_  
_ psychopathologists_  
_ active at night._

_Neploddy Neplooza_  
_ Yuri the Yandere_  
_ got a bit stabby when_  
_ she had a blade._

_After arriving here,_  
_ characteristically,_  
_ monsters she meets will need_  
_ medical aid._

_Neppery Nepperpop_  
_ Natsuki No-Last-Name_  
_ came to this world and then_  
_ ate a whole bunch._

_This famished female is_  
_ cuteness personified._  
_ Achondroplasia?_  
_ That is my hunch._

_Nepluto Neplastic_  
_ Her name’s just Monika._  
_ Always in solitude,_  
_ to her chagrin._

_Although her interest is_  
_ monomaniacal,_  
_ when in this world it is_  
_ never a sin._

_Dokiki, Dokookoo_  
_ Four of the Doki girls_  
_ located Shangri-la_  
_ in the long run,_

_but it required an_  
_ anthropomorphosis._  
_ After they went through it,_  
_ four became one._


End file.
